OSCE PEACE -MAKERS INSIST ON RECOGNITION OF KARABAKH AS AN INDEPENDENT SIDE OF CONFLICT

PanARMENIAN.Net - And though the co-chairman noted he did not believe Heydar Aliyev would agree to start direct contacts with Arkady Ghukasian in the pre-election period, it is evident that it was not by chance that Gribkov’s statement coincided with the visit of the members of the peace mission to the countries involved in the conflict. It is not excluded that the initiative of holding a bilateral meeting of Presidents of Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh will be the main subject to be discussed during the visit of the co-chairmen to the region.

The issue of direct participation of Karabakh in negotiations is not new. Vladimir Kazimirov, representing the Russian President at the negotiations on settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in 90-ies, has already spoken about the necessity to recognize Stepanakert as a conflict side. Recently he published an article in the “Vremya-MN” newspaper issued in Moscow where he criticized the position of the official Baku refusing to recognize Karabakh as an independent side of the conflict. “There is no reasonable explanation, why Aliyev rejects to consider Karabakh as an independent side of the conflict. But very often, when the situation in the front was unfavorable for Baku, he was looking for direct contacts with representatives of Stepanakert, was signing cease-fire documents (even without participation of Yerevan) and was naming it a “side”, Kazimirov writes. At the same time the former mediator reminds that the mandate of co-chairmen agreed on by the heads of the countries at the OSCE Budapest summit in 1994, envisages negotiations between the sides of the conflict, including also Nagorno Karabakh. According to the diplomat, the temporary concession of the co-chairmen to the unwillingness of Baku to resume the negotiations in the trilateral format dooms the meetings between the representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan to “imitation of restart of the negotiation process”. “Nagorno Karabakh can not be only an object of negotiations, even if someone wants so,” Kazimirov believes.

It’s worth noting that even in Azerbaijan the rationally thinking people have started to understand that there is no alternative to direct dialogue with Stepanakert. In this context the article published in May this year in the “Gyunay” newspaper of Baku is noteworthy. “Probably, it will be difficult to avoid contacts with separatists of Nagorno Karabakh in the negotiation process”. This is the subtitle of the article which says a lot. Quoting “several analysts”, the author of the article suggests that to avoid a new war “Baku might start direct negotiations with Khankendi, but the representatives of Yerevan should not take part in those negotiations”. Khankendi is how the capital city of Nagorno Karabakh (Stepanakert) is called in Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile, the author of the article reminds that once the Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliament has negotiated with leaders of Nagorno Karabakh. It took place, as the newspaper writes, “on May 12th of 1994, when on the initiative of the CIS inter-parliament assembly the heads of the legislative bodies of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh put their signatures under the Bishkek agreement on cease-fire.” The author supposes that “the Bishkek agreement has fixed the actual recognition of Nagorno Karabakh as a conflict side by Azerbaijan”. The conclusion is that “the issue of the status and security of Nagorno Karabakh will be the subject of negotiations between Baku and Khankendi”.

This article may be a testing of the ground for checking the reaction of the society on the idea of direct dialogue with NKR authorities. It’s worth mentioning that there was no public resonance around the article.