Who Semneby should meet
02-03-2007 11:06:42 – KarabakhOpen
After the visit of the EU’s Special Representative for the South
Caucasus Peter Semneby to Baku Nizami Bahmanov, who refers to himself
as the leader of the Azerbaijani community of Karabakh, stated that
the `Azerbaijani community’ is ready to discuss in Shushi the Karabakh
issue with the `Armenian community’. Recently the necessity of contact
between Karabakh and Azerbaijan has been underlined more
often. However, a few people make efforts to present it as the
necessity for relations between the `Armenian’ and the `Azerbaijani’
communities. Meanwhile, in Karabakh they are for equal relations.
`Nizami Bahmanov’s statement can be considered as another awkward
effort of the Azerbaijani government to present the problem of Nagorno
Karabakh as a conflict between the Armenian and Azerbaijani
communities. It means the only counterpart Mr. Bahmanov could talk to
is the chair of the NKR Organization of Refugees from Azerbaijan
Sanasar Saryan, which would help create confidence between hundreds of
thousands of people who suffer from the unsettled conflict. However,
even at this level the Azerbaijani side is politicizing the issue, and
rejects dialogue with NKR. I think Nizami Bahmanov should stop
carrying out the political orders of the Azerbaijani government and
let the competent agencies in Baku, Yerevan and Stepanakert deal with
the problem of Karabakh,’ said the head of the political department of
the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs Irina Beglaryan in an interview
with KarabakhOpen.com.
`As far as I know, Nizami Bahmanov runs a business in Baku, he is the
owner of the Shusha Hotel. It is strange that the EU’s Special
Representative meets with this person. Bahmanov cannot represent the
Azerbaijanis of Karabakh and the persons who are forcibly kept in
Azerbaijan, so I am not going to comment on his insinuation,’ said the
chair of the Committee of External Relations Vahram Atanesyan. `If the
EU’s special representative wants to show the importance of his
statements made earlier, he should cooperate with the elective
representatives of the people of NKR,’ the member of parliament added.