ATTEMPTS TO DISTORT STABILITY
Vardan Grigoryan
Hayots Ashkharh
11 July 07
A day before the meeting of Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan
with Minsk group co-Presidents, Mathew Braise over again gave emphasis
to the serious progress recorded in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations
during the last three years and appealed to fix the results obtained.
Such appeal must meet welcome, should the United States and the
international community try to be sincere in their evaluations of
the skid recently noticed in the negotiation process and should they
not make attempts to distort the fragile stability established in
the region.
It is well known that during the previous years Armenia’s attitude
towards the negotiation process has been extremely serious. Armenian
party has always made certain concessions, expecting synonymous steps
from the other party.
But the recent strange announcements made by the representatives of
European authoritative structures under the pressure of the United
States, principally contradict the contents of the interim agreement,
on the negotiation table by the efforts of OSCE Minsk group.
If before the end of the elections Terry Davis and Goran Lenmarker
promise to support the principle of the so-called "territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan", beforehand announcing illegal the results
of NKR presidential elections, is it startling that their OSCE Minks
group partners don’t manage to bring about a decisive turning point
in the negotiation process on the regulation of Karabakh issue?
After all they give beforetime predeterminations regarding the results
of the negotiations, this means Azerbaijan doesn’t have any desire
to make mutual concessions.
Moreover seeing that the leaders of the European structures take
the principle of their non-existent territorial integrity seriously,
recently Azerbaijan has started to make favorable bases to establish
bridges of dialogue with "Armenian community in Karabakh".
But what about the trilateral format established by OSCE Minsk
group. The meaning and political significance of the latter is
devaluated simply because, the international community intends to drive
Armenia to a corner by making predetermining announcements. In such
circumstances of an evident distortion of stability it is impossible
to record progress in the negotiations. And Azerbaijan, inspired of
the announcements made by the West can think that it has the right
to recover its non-existent "territorial integrity" by force.
Anyway, lots of things will be apparent after the clarification of the
results of the council between America and Azerbaijan that took place
yesterday in Washington. The council is evaluated in Azerbaijan as an
attempt to give pro-western direction to their policy. It is quite
understandable that the pro-Azerbaijani announcements made by Terry
Davis, Goran Lenmarker and others were aimed at providing success for
such an attempt. It is also understandable why they persistently try
to clarify the goal of Armenia – NATO relations.
In both cases they are trying to push the regulation of Karabakh
conflict in the plane of the competition between the super-powers in
South Caucasus and to win one of the conflicting parties over. In
this respect Armenia has already uttered its word and Azerbaijan’s
response will become known during the coming days.
Eventually, either international community will return to the former
tactics of requiring the conflicting parties to keep "equal distance",
which is a decisive condition for continuing and recording success
in the negotiation process, or they will intensify and realize their
latest announcements about showing unilateral support to Azerbaijan.