Translated material
Make it before the presidential elections
A new plan for resolving the Karabakh problem is being discussed in Moscow
Cooperation between Russia and Armenia in ensuring security in the Transcaucasus, primarily in resolving the Karabakh problem, is one of the main topics of negotiations during the three-day visit to Moscow of the head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Vartan Oskanian (pictured) that began yesterday. His program includes negotiations with his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov and with the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Nikolai Bordyuzha. The guest will also give a lecture at the Diplomatic Academy in English and with the remarkable title “Implementation of traditional and new directions of benevolent foreign policy of the Republic of Armenia.”Sergei Lavrov and Vartan Oskanian already met last week in Madrid at a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE member countries. Negotiations were also held there with the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. Other diplomats also met with the heads of the Armenian and Azerbaijani diplomatic departments, including French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and US Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns. The talk was about resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
As was reported later, international mediators handed over to the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan a new plan for resolving the conflict, which for the first time brought together several interesting initiatives, already called the “basic principles” of the settlement. The parties are invited to approve them in order to immediately proceed to the development of a peace agreement. According to Sergei Lavrov, the new plan “has absorbed the experience of Baku and Yerevan, the experience of dialogue between the two presidents, as well as the heads of the Foreign Ministries of these countries.”
The contents of the plan have not been disclosed. But leaks suggest that it refers to the withdrawal of Karabakh troops from a number of regions of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the deployment of international peacekeeping forces there. Azerbaijan is invited to agree to hold an additional referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh on the status of this territory.
Vartan Oskanian has already called the plan a “fair and balanced working document”: “It concerns the main problem - achieving the security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh through self-determination, as well as the problems of refugees and territories that emerged as a result of the struggle for self-determination.” However, according to the head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, the leadership of Azerbaijan continues to make militaristic calls and impedes international monitoring of the conflict zone, which could upset the existing fragile balance.
The mediators hope that Presidents of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev will be able to come to an agreement on the basic principles of resolving the conflict before the presidential elections in both countries: in Armenia they will take place on February 19, and in Azerbaijan in the fall of 2008. American diplomat Matthew Bryza, who is involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement issue, explained the need to be in time before the elections as follows: “A change of leader in any country in the world, of course, can have an impact on the negotiations. The situation in Azerbaijan is clear: we can say that it is already known who will be president. There are a number of candidates in Armenia, all of them, as far as I know, support the peace process.”
The mediators expect to receive responses from Yerevan and Baku to their proposals during a trip to the region at the end of January 2008. “Yes, there are elections coming up. But we do not link negotiations with elections and continue to work on a settlement. The co-chairs can come,” Vardan Oskanyan promised.