News.am, Armenia
March 6 2010

Mikhail Gorbachov: Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be part of Azerbaijan

11:00 / 03/06/2010 The first and last president of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachov admits that Nagorno-Karabakh was in a lamentable
state in 1980s, but the authorities did not pay any attention to the
region. `It was even impossible to get in touch with, say, Yerevan,
and Nagorno-Karabakh was not financed,’ Gorbachov said in his
interview with RFE/RL.

Speaking of the ways of settling the conflict, the former Soviet
leader pointed out that nobody wins in such conflicts. `An agreement
should have been reached, and we would have resolved the problem
somehow in late 1980,’ Gorbachov said.

`For example, I proposed republic status for Nagorno-Karabakh. The
then Azeri authorities ‘ I think Vezirov ` were on the point of
agreeing, but the plan failed. May be the problem could be resolved at
that time, but we cannot imagine Nagorno-Karabakh as part of
Azerbaijan now,’ Gorbachov said.

`We can hear new calls for war now. But a new war must not be allowed
in Nagorno-Karabakh. Negotiations are the only way out. War must be
ruled out; otherwise, great powers will be involved,’ he said.

`I think measures should have been taken to grant status to
Nagorno-Karabakh. Economic assistance should have been rendered as
well. People should have been enabled to keep touch with Yerevan. We
allocated funds for Karabakh later, I do not know how they were spent.
At that time they told me I loved Armenians and did not love
Azerbaijanis. Nonsense!’ said Gorbachov.

On the occasion of the 28th anniversary of perestroika (the policy of
reconstructing the economy, etc., of the former Soviet Union under the
leadership of Mikhail Gorbachov), the Gorbachov Fund released a
report. According to the authors, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is
among the causes of the USSR’s collapse. The authors points out that
the problem was the result of erroneous policy at the dawn of the
Soviet state.

T.P.