WikiLeaks: Oskanian believes some of Artsakh territories must be returned to Azerbaijan

PanARMENIAN.Net - The whistleblower website WikiLeaks has released a classified cable sent by U.S. ambassador to Armenia Marie Yovanovitch on February 25, 2010 to report on a meeting with former Minister of Foreign Affairs Vartan Oskanian.

During the meeting, the cable says, Oskanian expressed skepticism about the fate of the Armenia-Turkey protocols, and accused President Serzh Sargsyan of mishandling the entire process. In Oskanian's view, the controversy surrounding the protocols has prevented any movement on Nagorno Karabakh and even jeopardized its potential resolution.

Oskanian criticized the manner in which President Sargsyan has handled the entire process. According to him, the President "put the cart before the horse."

“Oskanian did not understand why President Sargsyan began the process with Turkey so publicly, and how unprepared he was for the negative public reaction. Prior to embarking upon normalization with Turkey, the government of Armenia had a document for solving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict - the Madrid Principles - that was promising to both sides. The President should have expended his political capital with Armenian citizens and the diaspora to persuade them that some of the Nagorno Karabakh territories must be returned to Azerbaijan. With Nagorno Karabakh settled, he could have then turned to the issues with Turkey. Oskanian said this had been his plan as Foreign Minister: first reach agreement on Nagorno Karabakh, and then bring in Turkey,” the cable says.

In response to the ambassador's question on how to move the process forward, Oskanian responded that there must be some movement from Turkey, and that the protocols cannot be left in abeyance while the parties shift their attention to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. “He believes the government of Turkey must be the first to take action, perhaps opening the border for limited movement of pedestrian traffic or third-country nationals. However, based on Oskanian's conversations with his Turkish contacts, Turkey is not offering room to maneuver and they are not interested in moving the process forward,” amb. Yovanovitch reports. “While Oskanian believes that the government of Armenia will not ratify the protocols unless it is assured that Turkey will follow suit, he believed it would be best for President Sargsyan to use his majority in the Armenian Parliament to ratify the protocols now, while there is still some support and there are no explicit links between the protocols and Nagorno Karabakh. He added that he takes no pleasure in the current predicament in which Sargsyan finds himself: He truly hopes the protocols will be ratified by both sides.”