SAMVEL BABAYAN: AZERBAIJAN CAN LOSE HALF OF ITS TERRITORY IN CASE OF NEW WAR

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
30.03.2010 15:07 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The course of Karabakh process prompts a military
solution, according to former NKR Defense Minister.

"Azerbaijan is a country which wants to have everything but give
nothing. So, I see no peaceful solution to the problem," Samvel
Babayan told reporters in Yerevan.

"Armenia prepares for war but refrains from parading it, unlike
Azerbaijan," he said, adding that Baku will never venture a new war.

"Azerbaijan knows that it can lose half of its territory in case it
resumes hostilities."

Asked whether Nagorno Karabakh may be re-engaged in the negotiation
process, he said the OSCE Minsk Group does not even try to exert any
kind of pressure on Baku in the issue. "Even if NKR rejoins talks,
nothing will change. We should have signed a final package back in
1994," he said.

The conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan broke out as
result of the ethnic cleansing the latter launched in the final years
of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from 1991 (when the
Nagorno Karabakh Republic was proclaimed) to 1994 (when a ceasefire
was sealed by Armenia, NKR and Azerbaijan). Most of Nagorno Karabakh
and a security zone consisting of 7 regions is now under control
of NKR defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan are holding peace talks
mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group up till now.

The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 to encourage a peaceful,
negotiated resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The Minsk
Group is headed by a Co-Chairmanship consisting of France, Russia and
the United States. The main objectives of the Minsk Process are as
follows: Providing an appropriate framework for conflict resolution
in the way of assuring the negotiation process supported by the Minsk
Group; Obtaining conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the
cessation of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of
the Minsk Conference; Promoting the peace process by deploying OSCE
multinational peacekeeping forces.