RAZMIK ZOHRABYAN, RPA DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE NEGOTIATIONS
Armine Avetyan

March 23, 2010

– Former foreign minister Vardan Oskanyan says "the negotiation quality
of the Armenian party has changed because during negotiations one
should be able to formulate alternative approaches." Do you really
think that the quality has changed? Do you think Azerbaijan is in a
more favorable position now?

– In relation to the quality I would like to cite the Azeri foreign
minister’s recent announcement, in which he sings the same song that
they are ready to give the highest level of autonomy to Azerbaijan, and
all citizens of Azerbaijan should take part in the process of deciding
the interval status. This means that they are against Karabakh’s
independence through self-determination. As I understand if it is about
the negotiations as well, then the quality has changed. If following
the announcement on self-determination, territorial integrity and
non-application of power by 55 OSCE states in Athens last year
they again say that the most important and priority principle
among these three ones is the principle of territorial integrity,
i.e. including Karabakh in Azerbaijan’s territory, then something is
wrong with the negotiations. It means that the new and old principles
of Madrid are not consistent, thus Armenia should orient in this
situation. It is a shock approach. They were speaking of a compromise
solution but unexpectedly they are saying that Karabakh will not be
independent. Accordingly the Armenian party is legally suggesting that
Karabakh should become a party of the negotiations. Now Karabakh is the
one to decide whether it wants to be included in the Azeri territory
or be independent. For being declared a de-facto independent state
Karabakh has all the institutions such as the president, parliament
and other institutions. I believe it was a wrong decision to take
Karabakh out of the process of negotiations.

During their tenure they did not do it, thus we are trying to return
Karabakh in order to find the right solution to resolve the issue of
the people’s destiny.

– What does this change in Azerbaijan’s policy mean?

– Azerbaijan has restricted its approach, and our foreign minister has
announced that it is impossible to settle the conflict of Karabakh
without Karabakh’s participation. I mean the participation in this
phase. What I mean is participation which is intermediated by Armenia
as it was before because if we continue the negotiations with this
format, it will be like we are giving a place to Azerbaijan’s demands.

This is my opinion.

– Do you agree with Vardan Oskanyan’s observation that the quality
has changed?

– The quality has not changed because Oskanyan said that; we knew that
before too. Why do we demand that Karabakh should be a participant of
the negotiation process now? Because their policy is stricter now. I
have not taken part in the negotiations but it is clear that Azerbaijan
has a stricter policy now. And they say that they agree with the new
principles of Madrid, but indeed they again misinterpret that thing
and say that Karabakh should be a part of their territory but with
a higher status. And the name of that status is not independence.

– Why did Azerbaijan decide to make the policy stricter? Maybe Armenia
gave this reason to them by launching the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation
process and recruiting Turkey in the negotiations.

– The answer to this question is different because Turkey wants
to become an important factor and solve problems in the region. If
Karabakh is independent, even if with sovereign borders of the Republic
of Karabakh, it is out of Turkey’s interests because in the region he
will have to deal with two independent and world recognized Armenian
states, which is not so easy. And if the issue is solved and Karabakh
is included in the territory of Azerbaijan, Turkey will deal with
Armenia only.

– Why did the Armenian government give this opportunity by initiating
the reconciliation process?

– There was an issue of opening the border, which was connected with
communications, import of economic products and export, as well
as opening a shorter way to Europe. In other words, we need for
communications and as two member states of the EU, we should have
open borders. We took that chance because we were interested in it,
and it turned out that other super-states such as Russia, the US and
Europe are interested in that too. The two countries entered into
negotiations, which was intermediated by the US and European states.

It was not like we decided to develop relations with Turkey and no one
supported our initiative. It was agreed to develop relations without
preconditions, the parties did not raise the issues of the conflict
of Karabakh or the genocide recognition in order to develop relations.

Neither of the parties pushed preconditions. It was said verbally,
the Turks agreed with that initiative and the US and European Union
promised to do that. But the Turks got their mind back on the way and
understood that they can’t have full influence in the region without
Karabakh. Thus, they are developing this precondition. As the US is a
powerful state and believes diplomatic morality is the fulfillment of
agreements and commitments, and the failure not to do so is immorality,
has started to apply pressure on Turkey. Such pressure will be done
with the issue of the Genocide and other tools.

– However in the Armenia-Turkey protocols there were preconditions
on the issues of Karabakh, Genocide and opening the border.

– These things had to be written directly. If there are preconditions,
these should be written directly. If there is nothing, it means there
are no preconditions either. The Turks are not saying this openly, but
definitely they are accusing the US and saying that they had promised
to solve the issue of Karabakh in parallel with that process. Why
don’t they do it? They are saying that the issue of Karabakh is not
connected with the protocols, and as they have promised that the issue
would be solved soon, it will be solved soon but they don’t know when
exactly. It is 15 years that they say it will be solved soon… Did
not the Turks know in 1991 that one of the main provisions in the
Armenian independence declaration would be the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide? Now they are saying the reason of stopping the
process is the ruling of the Constitutional Court and they ask why
we referred to this document. It was done only for domestic use.