ANC reacts to Postanjyan’s slam to qualify the 1994 ceasefire treason and Oskanian’s justification not to be guilty
“All those people who act as political figures and announce or will announce that they can regulate the Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression constituting a component part of the Eastern Question and give solution where there will be no winners and losers and no unilateral concessions, they are just repeating the betrayal of 1994 when instead of signing a document subjugating Azerbaijan to capitulation, a document on ceasefire was signed.” Zaruhi Postanjyan had made the following post on her Facebook page after former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan’s assessment on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement at the ORO Alliance conference. According to her, “to have a lasting peace, it is not necessarily to go for concessions and compromises but it is necessary to, first of all, restore the border positions approved by the 1994 ceasefire, and then move forward to liberate Lower Artsakh and Utik, restore the territorial integrity of historic Armenian Artsakh (about 12 thousand square kilometers) and provinces of Utik (about 12 thousand square kilometers).”
In this regard, in an interview with “Aravot”, ANC faction leader Levon Zurabyan reacted to her for qualifying the 1994 ceasefire agreement treason, “Zaruhi Postanjyan has been so far from military operations and being truly familiar with the situation. The 1994 ceasefire was established in a situation when there is no alternative. Those who do not know I can say the following: In April 1994, there was an operation which was aimed at capturing Mirbashir. However, because of very bad conditions: rainfall and humidity, the tanks could not move, this road was impassable for the tanks. Therefore, this operation was delayed throughout April and could not advance. And in May, the fieriest battle generally in the entire war occurred.
Only in the first few days in May, the Armenian army lost more than 1000 soldiers. It was the most intense and the heaviest war. There might be a day to come when I will be able to talk about this and reveal the state secrets, however, the ceasefire was established in a situation when there was no alternative to the ceasefire, when the supreme commandership of the army has put the issue of a ceasefire before Levon Ter-Petrosyan as there was no other option”. The former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian in response to our question about leaving Karabakh out from the negotiating table being at that time the responsible person for negotiations in the OSCE Minsk Group assured that he is not guilty here.
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Furthermore, he said that the then authorities are not guilty too, and it is Azerbaijan to be guilty. Levon Zurabyan began to laugh pertaining to Oskanian’s this kind of logic. In his words, “If we follow this logic, generally, we can blame Azerbaijan for all the problems of Armenia. Eventually, if it were not for Azerbaijan, we would not have to be in this conflict, in the blockade, carry a military burden, our economy would not be chocked and so on. Such a justification is a little absurd for me. However, there is another problem, it was a moment and was put before Key West when the RA authorities could resist the change in format. They just should have refused to negotiate in a bilateral format. At that time, it would look quite normal. There could be Armenian-Azerbaijani meetings, negotiations, but they should have refused the option where the Minsk Group co-chairs’ recommendations are sent not to all 3 parties as it was done until 1998 inclusive, but these recommendations begin to be discussed only with Armenia and Azerbaijan. They should have refused but they agreed to it. At that time, Robert Kocharyan actually went to such a negotiations format, it happened in Key West and then the Prague process. The format already became Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations. It was Robert Kocharyan’s decision. The decision of NKR was also there. NKR did not insist that it should mandatory be present there and does not authorize the Republic of Armenia to speak on its behalf. It did not happen. And it is absurd to say that we are not guilty.
If the RA and NKR were consistent at that time and would not allow the dismantling of the then format which we had imposed on the international community in the 1994 OSCE summit in Budapest, it was a great achievement. Negotiations could not run otherwise if it were not for the consent of RA and NKR. This consent happened, therefore the NKR ousted from the process. Now, they can say, you know there were a lot of pressure by Azerbaijan, well, yes, there were also great pressures on us. In 1996, during the OSCE summit in Lisbon, there was a very great pressure on us by all states to accept the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a part of Azerbaijan but Ter-Petrosyan put a veto and actually went against US, Russia, France and the entire international community. It was not our nation-driven interest, we could not agree to it. We withstood those pressures so should they.”
