Translated material
The seeding in PACE is completely different
Frozen conflicts of the former USSR as a reason to “scold” Russia
On November 5-6 in Berlin, the monitoring committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), together with a German institute, will hold hearings on the frozen conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh: they say an analysis of the situation and prospects for settlement is needed. This committee will then hold a meeting and press conference there, and will adopt a resolution in January 2008.PACE's idea is to “re-issue” the GUAM initiative at the session of the UN General Assembly this fall (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova at the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly brought up for discussion the problem of frozen conflicts in the former USSR. - Ed. ). And the goal of this initiative is the same - to “scold” Russia, which, you see, has frozen the resolution of conflicts. Other conflict situations in Europe are not so interesting for PACE.
Russia is more interested in resolving conflicts near its borders than Western countries and has made a lot of efforts to achieve this. In all four conflicts, it was Russia that helped in 1992-1994 to stop the massive bloodshed, sign armistice agreements, and begin the most difficult negotiation processes. Nowadays in Europe and the United States, fearing the Kosovo precedent for other conflicts, they stubbornly insist on how unique each of them is. And suddenly, in the four conflicts around Russia, there were some common points that made it possible to discuss them all at once both in the UN and in PACE. So much for the originality, dissimilarity, uniqueness of everyone!
It is worth mentioning the selection of participants for the Berlin event. Russia knows as well as Europeans the nature of each of these confrontations and the prospects for a settlement. Our diplomats, and even the military, are directly involved in the mechanisms of reconciliation of the parties. But it turns out that it is enough for PACE to call symbolically one Russian expert and formally invite the Russian Foreign Minister, who is unlikely to be able to come. Five people will take part from Great Britain, four from Germany, two from France... Among the speakers is the odious Russophobe, American professor Vladimir Sokor - as if only he knows the problems of the Georgian conflicts.
And who will brainstorm Karabakh there? The moderator is the British Lord Russell-Johnston, head of the subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh, created by a not very balanced, and in some places simply unreliable PACE resolution. Isn't it curious that it expresses special gratitude to the co-chairs of the Minsk Group for achieving a ceasefire on May 12, 1994? But the co-chairmanship of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was established only six months later. But PACE really didn’t want to admit that the truce was reached then only through the mediation of Moscow. Maybe just an oversight, a random mistake? However, in my open letter to the then PACE rapporteur, Lord David Atkinson, this “inaccuracy” was directly noted a month ago, but he never removed it. So much for the neatness and scrupulousness of the British!
In Berlin, reports on Karabakh will be made by a representative of the non-governmental British organization “Reconciliation Resources” and one German professor - both are really at a distance from this issue. This British organization publishes materials on various conflicts. She thanks 66 experts from many countries for their participation in preparing the collection on Nagorno-Karabakh, but not one of them from Russia. Another coincidence? The series of absurdities in the collection show the extent to which Reconciliation Resources has dealt with this conflict. It is not easy to find there about Russia’s contribution to the Karabakh settlement, noted in the decisions of the UN Security Council and the OSCE summit held in Budapest in December 1994. The decision of the Budapest summit - the highest and most significant OSCE document on Karabakh - is not included in the collection at all. Another coincidence?
The “scarcity” of everything Russian and the almost monopoly of the British in the PACE Karabakh games are striking (Terry Davis, Atkinson, Russell-Johnston, “Reconciliation Resources”). Maybe this is how they are compensated for their non-participation in the OSCE Minsk Group dealing with Karabakh? Great Britain has long been interested in the Caucasus, and now also in the Caspian Sea. Russia's representatives in PACE should take a closer look to see if something similar is evident there in relation to other post-Soviet conflicts.