OSCE Minsk Group: same old talks and nothing new at all

PanARMENIAN.Net - Honestly speaking, nothing new from this meeting should ever be expected. And the fact that the OSCE Minsk Group handed two written proposals on the regulation of Karabakh conflict to both countries, is not new.

Later the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both countries had a meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group with the presence of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov and the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicolas Burns. According to the American mediator Matthew Bryza, the co-chairs proposed a number of aspects in the frames of basic agreement. "We hope that both presidents will be able to solve these issues before the presidential elections. The aim of the meeting is introducing the Ministers our proposals and they, in their turn, will take those proposals to their Presidents. Over the last three months we have actively participated in the negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict regulation. Today we suggest the parties compromise solution. We want them to come to an agreement over basic principles during several weeks and months before the election campaign," announced Bryza. But the whole question is that Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan do not have these weeks or months. Robert Kocharyan leavs and naturally he will not sign anything. Ilham Aliyev most probably stays, but will not sign anything either, and will threaten with war from time to time, but this time via the Minister of Defence Safar Abiyev. Commenting on the statements of the Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan Safar Abiyev about the big probability of war between the conflicting parties, Matthew Bryza mentioned: "This process has lasted for more than 10 years and we all realize that the resolution of the conflict is possible only in peaceful." According to the Press-Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, there are 10 proposals included in the package provided by the OCSE Minsk Group to Oskanyan and Mamediarov. One of the proposals though is not agreed upon, since it is a rather fundamental one and most probably it is the proposal about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

This meeting tempts us to draw a parallel with Kosovo regulation. Having failed all the negotiations over the Kosovo problem, the EU and the USA have decided to accelerate the decision making over the Karabakh issue. Everybody spoke about it in Madrid. "For the regulation of "frozen conflicts" it is necessary to display political will and generosity. To achieve peace between our nations it is necessary to have the will of carrying negotiations, as well as political courage to solve conflicts including those in Moldova, Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh," announced the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain Miguel Angel Moratinos

He was supported by the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Goran Lennmarker, underlining that for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict there is this so called "golden chance". In his opinion all the conditions for the peaceful regulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are provided. The interesting thing is that in the beginning of the year everybody was talking about the "window of opportunity", now they are talking about the "golden chance". In both cases the wishful thinking is taken for the reality, for the most interested party, Nagorno-Karabakh is being ignored.

In his turn the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, the President of the Council of European Union Luis Amado called upon Armenia and Azerbaijan to fully get involved in the negotiations. "The OSCE Minsk Group and its three co-chairs have worked hard on choosing fair and balanced principles of regulation of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The EU supports the continuation of the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan and would like to use this opportunity to call both parties to complete involvement in the resolution process," announced the President of the Council of European Union.

Most likely the USA were so happy with the results of summit on Near-Eastern regulation in Annapolis, that they decided to resolve the "frozen conflicts" in CIS countries by the end of Bush's presidency. The American Administration hopes the agreement between Israel and Palestine may be reached during a year, before George Bush leaves his post in 2009. However, everybody forgets that the Arab-Israeli conflict started in 1948; 60 years have passed since then…