PACE President’s persistence in Karabakh issue will lead to nothing

PanARMENIAN.Net - The PACE Committee, established after the resolution of 2005, has not so far done anything special, nor it ever could, taking into account fuzziness of the organization itself and the lack of a mandate for resolution of the conflict. And one more important fact: a subcommittee session must be out of the question, since the Armenian delegation is boycotting the structure. And what is going to be discussed at the meeting? If the PACE president is really interested in settling the conflict, he must invite to the meeting representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh. But because parliamentary members of unrecognized states cannot participate in parliamentary assemblies, Cavusoglu’s statements are worth nothing. It should be noted that, most obviously, he intentionally emphasizes that the subcommittee is designed to mainly deal with humanitarian issues and make efforts to improve dialogue between the delegations of two countries in the structure. Cavusoglu also stressed the disinclination of PACE subcommittee to replace the OSCE Minsk Group.

Cavusoglu’s behavior fits into the overall interest of Turkey to participate in the process of Karabakh conflict settlement. Quite interesting is the fact that out of the 11 states of Minsk conference, only Turkey is eager to become a co-chair state and resolve the issue, naturally, in favor of “Azerbaijani brothers”. The Minsk conference includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. But the most interesting point is still ahead.

According to one of the former co-chairs, Russian diplomat Vladimir Kazimirov, the Minsk Group developed de facto. None of the OSCE structures had ever made any decision on establishing this group. “Minsk Group never had any mandate that would have been approved by any of the OSCE bodies. It was formed after Azerbaijan refused to enter the Minsk conference, demanding that the Armenian side leave Lachin and Shushi. Thus, opening of the Minsk Conference was delayed. Later, an agreement was concluded in Helsinki, according to which a preparatory meeting for the opening of the Minsk Conference was to be held. This was suggested by the American side in agreement with Russia. However, neither was this decision adopted, since the text of the American project made a mention of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. This time the Armenian side refused. However, none of the countries, including Armenia, were against such a meeting, so on 1 June 1992 it took place in Rome. Mario Raffaelli was appointed Chairman of the Minsk Conference. Since then, the group met rather often, and the Minsk Group was formed de facto, without a single decision on its establishment. Initially, the Minsk Group tried playing a mediator’s role. However, it’s not an easy job to be a mediator for nine states, including Turkey. Very soon it became clear that the Minsk Group could not work as a mediator. And then, at the OSCE summit in Budapest in December of 1994, a decision was made to establish the Minsk Group co-chairmanship and charge it with conducting negotiations between conflicting parties, not limited to recognized states. Thus, the Minsk Group itself was not engaged in negotiation processes, and became a kind of advisory body to the chairmanship. The co-chairs organize meetings of presidents and foreign ministers, finalize documents, periodically advising the rest of the OSCE Minsk Group. This is the situation at the moment. Co-chairs are coordinating the main basic principles between Armenia and Azerbaijan, periodically contacting also the leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh,” writes Kazimirov in his book “Peace to Karabakh”.

But unlike the OSCE Minsk Group, which for almost 20 years now has prevented resumption of hostilities in the conflict zone, the PACE subcommittee, taking up the settlement process with direct participation of Cavusoglu, might just provoke a collision. Hardly is it possible that the OSCE may not realize the danger of Turkey’s involvement in this issue, as well as in other conflicts, paying no attention to the Kurdish issue and applying with its regard the favored Ottoman approach – massacre, rape and murder. Instead of founding stillborn organizations, the PACE president had better cast a glance to the south-east of his native country, where a war against the Kurds has been lingering for over 30 years now.

And lastly, “Resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a common cause of all the Turkic women,” said Turkish Minister of Family and Social Policy Fatma Sahin in Baku, at the international conference “The Role of Women in the XXI Century: Responsibility of women politicians”. According to her, no Turkic woman can be indifferent towards what is happening in Karabakh. “The fate of Azerbaijan is our fate. The grief of Azerbaijan is our grief. The joy of Azerbaijan is our joy,” the minister added, Trend agency reports.