AZERBAIJAN’S NEW BLOW ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH PEACE PROCESS
By Ivan Gharibyan

news.am
Feb 15 2010
Armenia

On February 15, at a news conference held jointly with Kazakh Foreign
Minister Qanat Saudabayev, who is OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov made one more step designed to
thwart the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Mr. Mammadyarov’s statements
can also be viewed as a response to the Armenian President’s speech
in London.

So what did Mr. Mammadyarov actually do? While calling the revised
Madrid Principles acceptable and expressing official Baku’s
readiness to continue the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, he set
an unacceptable condition to the Armenian side. According to the
Azerbaijani FM, official Baku’s position is clear: "The country sees
Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, provided the Armenian and
Azerbaijani communities co-exist there."

Thus the top-ranking Azeri official once again showed his state
has no intention to make any concessions in the Nagorno-Karabakh
peace process thereby calling into question the very sense of the
negotiations. Moreover, his view of Nagorno-Karabakh’s future status
runs counter to the Armenian side’s position.

Indeed, what "peaceful co-existence of the Armenian and Azerbaijani
communities" in Nagorno-Karabakh — even with its highest status
in Azerbaijan — can we speak of if that country proved unable to
ensure its citizens’ security when it was one of the republics of
the Soviet Union? The Azerbaijani FM is now speaking of "ethnic
cleansing" by Armenians, while he is cynically silent about the
coherent policy of forcibly expelling the native Armenian population
from Azerbaijan. The person conducting negotiations for a peaceful
settlement of the conflict is repeating like a parrot the things
official Baku has been wailing about for more than 15 years. What
progress in the negotiations are the international mediators speaking
about if the Azerbaijan authorities have not changed their rhetoric
or actual steps allegedly aimed at a peaceful settlement? True, the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict forced about 200,000 Azerbaijanis to leave
Armenia. However, they were not subjected to violence and were able
to sell their property. On the other hand, twice as many Armenians
were displaced from Azerbaijan – over 200,000 Armenians had to leave
Baku alone. The acts of ethnic cleansing, which were committed by
the Popular Front of Azerbaijan (PFA) and are now being justified by
the Aliyev clan, were accompanied by Armenian pogroms and murders in
Baku, Sumgait, Kirovabad and other cities of Azerbaijan. No Armenian
remained in the Shahumyan region, which was occupied and committed
to flames by Azeris, whereas Armenians constituted almost 100% of
the region’s population before the conflict.

The sides can engage in endless "exposures" and recriminations. It
is not clear, however, what is the purpose of the Minister of Foreign
Affairs of one of the parties to the peace process – in the context of
"Azerbaijan’s commitment to a peaceful settlement of the conflict."

One draws the inescapable conclusion that, while claiming they agree
to what is known as the Madrid Principles, the Azerbaijani authorities
are actually against the international mediators’ proposals. With
this end in view, on the threshold of a regular meeting with Armenian
representatives and international mediators, Azerbaijan is setting
terms that are inherently unacceptable to the Armenian side.

Official Yerevan, which actually agreed to painful concessions,
through the mouth of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, stressed
last week that it is impossible for Nagorno-Karabakh to be part of
Azerbaijan. Not that it is Armenians’ whim — the world history does
not know any instances of victors returning everything to the losers.

Speaking at Chathman House in London, the Armenian leader stated:
Azerbaijan has proved its inability to ensure the security of
the Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh, which rules out the
possibility of Nagorno-Karabakh being returned to Azerbaijan. For
many years the Azerbaijani authorities have not been able to refute
this argument.

The international mediators, instead of making evasive statements on
progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, had better think of
which of the sides is actually trying to thwart this same process.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress