Another meeting before the end of the year

Head of the NKR NA foreign relations committee Vahram Atanesyan fears the Turkish-Azerbaijani diplomatic time-out.

–       Quite a positive atmosphere was created around the Kazan meeting, however what happened during that meeting and after it destroyed all the fragments of optimism. What impression has this all made on you?

–       Who had too much expectations from the Kazan meeting, let it not sound offensive, but that is their problem. I myself stated in Yerevan two months before the Kazan meeting that Ilham Aliyev would not sign a document that read that the NKR conflict had to be solved peacefully. This is Azerbaijan’s explicit attitude and I would like this to be understood and clear for the respected persons who carry out the mediation.  Therefore, I had expected exactly what happened in Kazan. There is nothing new in all this for me.

–       Nevertheless, after these events, in your opinion, how will develop the future process of the NKR conflict settlement?

–       I think that all the signals have been sent to Azerbaijan; this issue does not have a military solution. And I also think that the international mediation mission either has some reservations toward Azerbaijan’s aggressiveness or it supports that Azerbaijan appears as having an extremely aggressive position. At this point, I cannot clearly say or claim that this attitude of Azerbaijan is supported by these very circles, but the essence of the matter does not change because of that. Anyway, it is time for the circles that support Azerbaijan to clearly understand that threat is not the tool that will make the Armenian side go for a unilateral compromise. It is ruled out. I am sorry, but I have to use a little rude definition; recently some analyses of international, Sabine Freizer level, explicitly read that if Armenia does not agree, Azerbaijan must start a war. However, they make one essential oversight; the war is an opportunity for both sides. No one can guarantee how the war will end. In 1991 when Azerbaijan started the war it had the same advantage over the Armenian side as it has today. If some analysts think that the war can solve the problem, then the war can solve the problem not only for Azerbaijan. Including, first of all, for the NKR. No one can convincingly say that after the war the NKR cannot have more geological parameters than it has today.

–       Thus, regardless of the fact that the necessity of solving the problem peacefully was reaffirmed on the paper in Kazan, today is the danger or the fears of the military actions renewal bigger?

–       I argue that Azerbaijan does not intend to solve this problem peacefully and that must at last be clear for the mediators. And if they are really interested in the peaceful solution of the issue, then they have to make Azerbaijan or at least call upon it to accept the concept put on the negotiation table. By the way, it is interesting that before the Kazan meeting, the “Regnum” agency made public that in Kazan Baku feared to find itself in Belgrade’s position. This is not random at all, particularly, taking into account what circles’ ideology “Regnum” bears. The main obstacle of the issue is that Turkey did not agree on Azerbaijan’s signing the so called “road map for peace”. It is not in the interest of Turkey right now, since the next step should be that Turkey makes the timetable of settling the Armenian-Turkish relations public. The intrigue is how long the Armenian-Turkish diplomatic time-out will last and who its sponsors are. I hope that the Minsk Group mediation mission plays its role, tries to protect itself, which is reassured by the statement spread by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the co-chairs were going to visit the region in the near future “to prepare the continuation of the negotiations”.