IS AMBASSADOR KAZIMIROV A FORMER MEDIATOR OR A POLITICAL HAWK FROM YEREVAN?

Trend
Feb 17 2010
Azerbaijan

Vladimir Kazimirov’s article posted on Armenian Web site armtoday.info
is provocative and distorts the essence of events in the region,
Fikret Sadikhov, Azerbaijani political scientist and diplomat, said.

Kazimirov was mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1992-1996.

"If one does not know whose article it is, one can imagine that this
was not a diplomat involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from
1992 to 1996 with a mediation mission, but a politician from Yerevan,"
Sadikhov said.

According to him, the former mediator’s concern is that the Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Euronews, that
Azerbaijan will never agree to Karabakh’s independence and will not
accept any mechanisms or procedures that could potentially lead to
its separation.

"It is simply impossible to say more reasonably, logically and
clearly. Azerbaijan had to conduct lengthy negotiations to set up the
Minsk Group to agree about the separation of Karabakh," Sadikhov said.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated that they stand for peaceful solution
of the problem and the only thing they added was that if a peaceful
path does not give any results, then they will use force to resolve
the conflict, he added.

"Kazimirov said that it turns out that Azerbaijan ignored all U.N.

Security Council resolutions dated 1991, but Armenia didn’t. There
is a complete distortion of facts. The document states that it is
necessary to withdraw Armenian troops from the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan. There is another document dated March 2008 of the 62nd
session of the U.N. General Assembly. It also stresses the need for
immediate and full withdrawal of all Armenian forces from Azerbaijani
territories," Sadikhov said.

"There are thoughts of Kazimirov, which demonstrate concern about the
situation in the region. But I am sure he is not concerned about the
region; he is concerned with how the Armenian population of Karabakh
will express their will and how it will be able to vote. He is not
interested, and even fears the fact that Azerbaijanis lived all their
life on this land and this is Azerbaijani land," the politician said.

"The article negatively affects the formation of public opinion
towards Russia in Azerbaijan and, of course, does not honor a former
co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, now such an active and highly
biased advocate for the interests of Armenia," the diplomat said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a cease-fire agreement in 1994.

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the United
States – are currently holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions
on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the occupied
territories.