"Karabakh Issue Is A Stake In The Hands Of Superpowers"

"KARABAKH ISSUE IS A STAKE IN THE HANDS OF SUPERPOWERS"

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[05:11 pm] 19 September, 2006

"The Karabakh issue is a stake in the hands of superpowers. Armenian
officialdom refers to the Karabakh issue only when the inner political
procedures activate.

But the conflict regulation is independent of the will of the
Karabakh, Armenian and Azeri authorities," said Galoust Sahakyan,
leader of Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) in the club "Mirror"
today. Mr. Sahakyan is convinced that the Karabakh conflict won’t
be regulated in 2006. He doesn’t exclude that it won’t be regulated
by 2012.

David Shahnazaryan, member of Armenian National Movement, advised our
authorities not to connect the regulation of the Karabakh conflict
with the elections. As for Sahakyan’s statement that the Karabakh
issue is a stake in the hands of superpowers, Mr. Shahnazaryan said,
"We must confess that the Karabakh conflict has become an uninteresting
and useless toy for superpowers."

"The country’s foreign policy in connection with Karabakh resembles
a lost game. The issue is quickly replaced before the UNO. The RA
Foreign Ministry announces that if Azerbaijan puts the issue in the
UNO agenda, we shall cease the negotiations. Next day we come to know
that the issue of the Azeri territories occupied by the Armenian side
was put into the agenda.

For the first time Armenia accepted the issue of the occupied
territories," noted Mr. Shahnazaryan. He claims that the Armenian
authorities could have put the issue of the ruined Armenian monuments
in Nor Jugha and in Nakhijevan into the UNO agenda instead.

"I am convinced that the RA authorities will disagree with me saying
this issue is UNESCO’s consideration."

Mr. Shahnazaryan is convinced that the announcements about the NKR
involvement into the negotiation procedure will be in vain, "These
announcements will never be taken for granted as Robert Kocharyan has
announced many times that he represents both Karabakh and Armenia. The
Karabakh authorities must distinctly announce that Mr. Kocharyan
doesn’t represent Karabakh but they cannot do it. The suggestions of
Karabakh conflict regulation have been the same since 1997."

This resembles the same phase version with a few slight changes."

Galoust Sahakyan added that he appreciates that rough position in
the NKR issue but they are inadmissible for him.

Mr. Sahakyan’s announcement seemed weird to us as at the beginning of
the meeting he said that the Karabakh issue is a stake in the hands of
superpowers and then named those superpowers, "USA, Russian Federation,
France, etc." Thus, we see that he noted the names of the OSCE Minsk
group member countries.