Armenian News
Sarkisian Reaffirms Support For Karabakh Peace Plan
By Emil Danielyan
Prime Minister and President-elect Serzh Sarkisian reassured
international mediators on Thursday about his overall acceptance of
their existing proposals to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Sarkisian met with the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE
Minsk Group on the fringes of NATO's summit in the Romanian capital
Bucharest. A statement by the Armenian government's press service said
he `reaffirmed Armenia's readiness to resolve the conflict by peaceful
means, within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group and on the basis of
the document currently on the table.'
The document, which spells out the basic principles of a Karabakh
settlement, was formally submitted to Baku and Yerevan last November. It
calls for a phased solution to the dispute that would delay agreement on
the pivotal question of Karabakh's status. The two sides have reportedly
agreed on most of those principles, leading the mediators to express
hope that the framework peace deal will be sealed in the coming months.
However, chances for the signing of such agreement appear to have
diminished in recent weeks. Azerbaijan has seemingly hardened its
position since the March 14 passage by the UN General Assembly of a
resolution that upheld its sovereignty over Karabakh and demanded an
`unconditional' Armenian withdrawal from occupied Azerbaijani
territories. Earlier this week Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian accused
Baku of seeking to walk away from the Minsk Group plan.
The mediators held a separate meeting with Aliev in Bucharest on
Wednesday. Azerbaijani media quoted Aliev's foreign policy chief, Novruz
Mammadov, as saying that the meeting was `quite tense,' with the
Azerbaijani leader demanding that the co-chairs explain why their
countries voted against the UN resolution.
Nonetheless, the group's U.S. co-chair, Matthew Bryza, sounded
cautiously optimistic about peace prospects as he spoke to Armenian
journalists after the talks with Sarkisian. `I think the process is
moving forward,' Bryza said, according to the government statement. He
expressed hope that Aliev and Sarkisian will hold their first
face-to-face meeting shortly after the latter is sworn in as Armenia's
new president on April 9.
The mediators hoped to arrange such a meeting during the NATO summit.
But it did not take place because of objections reportedly voiced by the
Azerbaijani side. Mammadov claimed at the weekend that Sarkisian needs
the encounter to shore up his position at home, rather than to make
further progress towards Karabakh peace.
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Armenian Rally Ban `Unacceptable' To European Watchdogs
By Emil Danielyan and Astghik Bedevian
Europe's two leading human rights watchdogs have expressed serious
concern about the Armenian authorities' recently enacted legal
amendments that effectively banned further anti-government rallies in
the country.
The National Assembly hastily passed the controversial amendments to an
Armenian law on street gatherings on March 17, four days before the end
of a state of emergency imposed by President Robert Kocharian in the
wake of Armenia's disputed presidential election. They were closely
examined by experts from the Council of Europe's Venice Commission the
OSCE's Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
(ODIHR) shortly afterwards.
"On the basis of a preliminary assessment, the Venice Commission and the
OSCE/ODIHR Expert Panel on Freedom of Assembly do not consider the
proposed amendments to be acceptable, to the extent that they restrict
further the right of assembly in a significant fashion," they said in a
joint statement released late Wednesday.
The two bodies had submitted a detailed analysis of the amendments to
the leadership of the Armenian parliament late last week. Its findings
were high on the agenda of an ensued visit to Yerevan by members of a
more influential Council of Europe body monitoring the fulfillment of
Armenia's membership commitments to the Strasbourg-based organization.
Diplomats making up the so-called Ago Group pressed Armenian leaders to
accept the Venice Commission's and ODIHR's recommendations in addition
to engaging in dialogue with the opposition and releasing political
prisoners.
Parliament speaker Tigran Torosian assured the visiting diplomats that
he and other senior Armenian lawmakers are ready to discuss those
recommendations with European experts `in the second half of April.' The
Venice Commission and the ODIHR said that the talks have already been
scheduled for April 15-16.
However, Rafik Petrosian, chairman of the Armenian parliament's
committee on legal affairs, made it clear on Thursday that the
amendments will not be revised anytime soon despite pressure from the
Europeans. `These changes will not be repealed in the near future
because they are important for the security of our state and people and
for public order,' Petrosian told RFE/RL. `When a person's life is in
danger their political rights can not be fully protected,' he said.
The Armenian authorities say that the restrictions on freedom of
assembly are necessary for preventing a repeat of the March 1 clashes
between security forces and opposition supporters protesting against
official results of the February 19 election that gave victory to Prime
Minister Serzh Sarkisian. At least seven civilians and one police
officer were killed in those clashes.
Sarkisian is due to be sworn in as Armenia's new president on April 9.
The Armenian opposition led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian has
pledged to continue to challenge the legitimacy of his controversial
election win. It has also dismissed the changes in the law on rallies as
unconstitutional.
The law until now allowed municipal authorities to ban rallies and
demonstrations which they believe are aimed, among other things, at a
`violent overthrow of constitutional order.' One of the amendments
overwhelmingly adopted by the parliament complements the clause with
cases where authorities have `reliable information' that street protests
would pose a threat to `state security, public order, public health and
morality.' Any such information coming from the Armenian police and the
National Security Service (NSS) will be automatically deemed `reliable,'
effectively giving the two law-enforcement bodies the discretionary
power to outlaw anti-government protests.
In their joint analysis sent to the National Assembly on March 28, the
Venice Commission and the ODIHR said this provision is `excessive' and
must be amended in a way that would allow Armenian courts to quash
police or NSS bans. They also called for the repeal of another, more
significant, amendment that allows the authorities to `temporarily' ban
rallies for an unspecified period of time after street gatherings
resulting in casualties. The ban shall remain in force until the end of
the official investigation into a particular case of deadly street
violence.
The European watchdogs said this provision `greatly increases the
potential for arbitrary restrictions' and enables security forces to
disperse `an assembly where the authorities themselves have used
excessive force resulting in the loss of life.' `In addition, it must be
emphasized that violence by a minority of participants should not
automatically result in the dispersal of the entire event, and the
Police and National Security Service must always distinguish between
violent and non-violent participants,' they said.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch made a similar point when it
urged the Armenian government to lift the effective ban on opposition
rallies last Friday. `The new restrictions effectively punish peaceful
demonstrators for the violence that took place on March 1,' its Europe
and Central Asia director, Holly Cartner, said in a statement.
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ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN CLASH OVER OSCE MEDIATION
Azerbaijanis hint they want change to the way the negotiations
over Nagorny Karabakh are managed.
By Zarema Velikhanova in Baku and Ara Tadevosian in Yerevan
The peace process over Nagorny Karabakh is in danger of unravelling, as Azerbaijanis cast doubt over the usefulness of the way the negotiations have been conducted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Since 1997, the talks have been mediated by the American, French and Russian co-chairmen of the OSCE's "Minsk Group." At the end of last year, the Minsk Group tried to persuade the two sides to accept a statement of basic principles, as a first step towards breaking the deadlock over Nagorny Karabakh's future - but no agreement was reached.
There is now a widespread perception that the peace process is exhausted.
On March 12, Azerbaijan's ambassador to the OSCE sent secretary general Marc Perrin de Brichambaut a letter asking him to "clarify existing or possible procedures" for replacing or terminating the Minsk Group co-chairmanship.
Two days later, the United Nations General Assembly passed an Azerbaijan-sponsored resolution, which expressed support for the Minsk Group, but whose first two points reaffirmed Azerbaijan's territorial integrity - taken to include Armenian-held Nagorny Karabakh - and demanded "the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan".
Most countries abstained, but 39 voted in favour, including Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine.
Among the seven countries that voted against the resolution were the three main mediating states - France, Russia and the United States - which said the document reflected only the Azerbaijani position in the dispute.
On March 19 the three current co-chairmen of the Minsk Group - Russia's Yury Merzlyakov, Bernard Fassier of France and Matt Bryza from the US administration - issued a statement reaffirming their support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,"while holding that the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of negotiations between the parties".
Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute in Washington told the Mediamax news agency in Yerevan that the UN resolution came in response to Azerbaijani concerns about Kosovo's recent declaration of independence from Serbia.
"Baku seems to worry that Kosovo will be used as a precedent," she said. "Azerbaijanis have seen how strongly the US has supported Georgia's territorial integrity, yet has been more ambivalent on Azerbaijan's. Of course, given that the US is a co-chair of the Minsk Group and must therefore remain an honest broker, the US government could not really take a different position on Karabakh. Unfortunately, for the ordinary Azeri this is a distinction that is difficult to understand or accept."
Armenian officials angrily accused Azerbaijan of undermining the negotiation process. Foreign ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan also criticised Baku for not agreeing to a meeting between President Ilham Aliev and Armenian president-elect Serzh Sarkisian at the current NATO summit in Bucharest.
"This shows once again that the statements and steps made by Azerbaijani officials have nothing in common with their promises to continue the peace process," said Balayan.
In response, Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister Araz Azimov told journalists that his country was not shunning the current negotiating framework. He said that an affirmation of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan lies at the heart of the so-called Prague Process, which has been the basis of negotiations over the past three years.
"If that hadn't been the case, Baku would have rejected these negotiations," he said. "It says in these proposals that Nagorny Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan and that Azerbaijanis and Armenians receive the right to live on this territory. It is unacceptable to introduce any changes and conjectures into this formula. Azerbaijan will not permit the loss of part of its territory, and will guarantee its territorial integrity by any means."
Outside government, a fierce debate has begun in Azerbaijan about whether the Minsk Group should now be changed.
A well-known pro-government member of parliament, Anar Mamedkhanov, wrote an article entitled, "Shouldn't we tell the Minsk Group to...?" in which he recommended that his Azerbaijan give up on the current mediators.
Political analyst Ilgar Mamedov argued that it was time for Azerbaijan to challenge the format of the Minsk Group co-chairmanship.
"The procedure for changing the co-chairmen is straightforward," Mamedov told IWPR. "You put a blank piece of paper with the president's letterhead into the printer. You type a text on your computer rejecting the services of the mediators, you sign it and you send it to the presidents of the co-chairmanship countries. That's it."
"Otherwise we will soon be doubting whom Karabakh actually belongs to - Azerbaijan or the co-chairmen."
Orkhan Fikretoglu, a writer and commentator with the ANS television channel, told IWPR, "It's not worth waiting for any serious actions from the co-chairs of the Minsk Group either now or in the near future. The mediators in the negotiations ought to be countries that have no interests in the region - for example, certain Muslim countries or neutral European ones like Switzerland, Norway or Sweden. These countries don't need our oil or our lands."
By contrast, the Armenians basically supports the current US-Russian-French arrangement. In 2006, President Robert Kocharian told Armenian television, "The mediators are doing the maximum possible within the framework of their mandate. From time to time, I ask myself what I would do in their place and I find it hard to answer."
On March 20 this year, Kocharian - whose successor Sarkisian was voted in last month - told a press conference in Yerevan that he wanted to see the negotiations continue in their current form.
He then issued a warning that "if Azerbaijan continues with its unconstructive steps, Armenia will recognise the independence of the Nagorny Karabakh Republic, and will sign a collective defence treaty with it".
This threat has been hinted at before, but never acted on.
The "Nagorny Karabakh Republic" unilaterally declared itself independent from Azerbaijan in1991. However, Yerevan has never formally recognised the breakaway territory as a sovereign state, nor has it moved to annex it.
In practical terms, Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh are now closely integrated with each other.
Last August, the opposition Heritage Party led by former Armenian foreign minister Raffi Hovannissian submitted a bill to parliament calling on Armenia to recognise the Nagorny Karabakh Republic. The bill did not come to a vote.
Hrair Karapetian, who heads the parliamentary faction of the nationalist Dashnaktsutiun party, told IWPR, "We continue to call for the unification of Nagorny Karabakh and Armenia, which has de facto already taken place."
He went on to add the proviso that "legal recognition of this reality will be possible only if further negotiations on resolving the Karabakh problem prove impossible."
Armenia's national budget consistently earmarks a credit line for Nagorny Karabakh.
In the view of Tigran Torosian, the speaker of Armenia's parliament, "By approving the state budget every year, the parliament of Armenia recognises the independence of the Nagorny Karabakh Republic."
US co-chairman Bryza warned that if Armenia moved towards formal recognition of Nagorny Karabakh, this would represent a "highly asymmetric response" to Azerbaijan's actions.
"Any move that prejudges the outcome of the negotiations that are under way, and that are achieving some real results in terms of moving closer to finalising the basic principles, would be unhelpful," Bryza told the Armenian Report newspaper in the United States. "And we looked at the UN GA [General Assembly] resolution of Azerbaijan in that very light - that it was a one-sided resolution that did not reflect the fair and balanced nature of the proposal on the table."
He added, "Similarly, if the Armenian side were to move unilaterally and prejudge the outcome of the negotiations by recognising Nagorno Karabakh, that would be something that is very seriously undermining the peace process."
Arif Yunus, a veteran specialist on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, based in Baku, said the current negotiations were certainly not working, but for a different reason - they were failing to engage with the public on either side of the conflict.
"We absolutely do have to pose the question of changing the format of the Minsk Group," said Yunus. "The co-chairmen have just turned into people who turn up at the negotiations. However, the problems of Nagorny Karabakh depend not on the co-chairmen, but on the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples."
Zarema Velikhanova is a freelance journalist in Baku. Ara Tadevosian is director of Mediamax news agency in Yerevan.
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The peace process over Nagorny Karabakh is in danger of unravelling, as Azerbaijanis cast doubt over the usefulness of the way the negotiations have been conducted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Since 1997, the talks have been mediated by the American, French and Russian co-chairmen of the OSCE's "Minsk Group." At the end of last year, the Minsk Group tried to persuade the two sides to accept a statement of basic principles, as a first step towards breaking the deadlock over Nagorny Karabakh's future - but no agreement was reached.
There is now a widespread perception that the peace process is exhausted.
On March 12, Azerbaijan's ambassador to the OSCE sent secretary general Marc Perrin de Brichambaut a letter asking him to "clarify existing or possible procedures" for replacing or terminating the Minsk Group co-chairmanship.
Two days later, the United Nations General Assembly passed an Azerbaijan-sponsored resolution, which expressed support for the Minsk Group, but whose first two points reaffirmed Azerbaijan's territorial integrity - taken to include Armenian-held Nagorny Karabakh - and demanded "the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan".
Most countries abstained, but 39 voted in favour, including Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine.
Among the seven countries that voted against the resolution were the three main mediating states - France, Russia and the United States - which said the document reflected only the Azerbaijani position in the dispute.
On March 19 the three current co-chairmen of the Minsk Group - Russia's Yury Merzlyakov, Bernard Fassier of France and Matt Bryza from the US administration - issued a statement reaffirming their support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,"while holding that the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of negotiations between the parties".
Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute in Washington told the Mediamax news agency in Yerevan that the UN resolution came in response to Azerbaijani concerns about Kosovo's recent declaration of independence from Serbia.
"Baku seems to worry that Kosovo will be used as a precedent," she said. "Azerbaijanis have seen how strongly the US has supported Georgia's territorial integrity, yet has been more ambivalent on Azerbaijan's. Of course, given that the US is a co-chair of the Minsk Group and must therefore remain an honest broker, the US government could not really take a different position on Karabakh. Unfortunately, for the ordinary Azeri this is a distinction that is difficult to understand or accept."
Armenian officials angrily accused Azerbaijan of undermining the negotiation process. Foreign ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan also criticised Baku for not agreeing to a meeting between President Ilham Aliev and Armenian president-elect Serzh Sarkisian at the current NATO summit in Bucharest.
"This shows once again that the statements and steps made by Azerbaijani officials have nothing in common with their promises to continue the peace process," said Balayan.
In response, Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister Araz Azimov told journalists that his country was not shunning the current negotiating framework. He said that an affirmation of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan lies at the heart of the so-called Prague Process, which has been the basis of negotiations over the past three years.
"If that hadn't been the case, Baku would have rejected these negotiations," he said. "It says in these proposals that Nagorny Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan and that Azerbaijanis and Armenians receive the right to live on this territory. It is unacceptable to introduce any changes and conjectures into this formula. Azerbaijan will not permit the loss of part of its territory, and will guarantee its territorial integrity by any means."
Outside government, a fierce debate has begun in Azerbaijan about whether the Minsk Group should now be changed.
A well-known pro-government member of parliament, Anar Mamedkhanov, wrote an article entitled, "Shouldn't we tell the Minsk Group to...?" in which he recommended that his Azerbaijan give up on the current mediators.
Political analyst Ilgar Mamedov argued that it was time for Azerbaijan to challenge the format of the Minsk Group co-chairmanship.
"The procedure for changing the co-chairmen is straightforward," Mamedov told IWPR. "You put a blank piece of paper with the president's letterhead into the printer. You type a text on your computer rejecting the services of the mediators, you sign it and you send it to the presidents of the co-chairmanship countries. That's it."
"Otherwise we will soon be doubting whom Karabakh actually belongs to - Azerbaijan or the co-chairmen."
Orkhan Fikretoglu, a writer and commentator with the ANS television channel, told IWPR, "It's not worth waiting for any serious actions from the co-chairs of the Minsk Group either now or in the near future. The mediators in the negotiations ought to be countries that have no interests in the region - for example, certain Muslim countries or neutral European ones like Switzerland, Norway or Sweden. These countries don't need our oil or our lands."
By contrast, the Armenians basically supports the current US-Russian-French arrangement. In 2006, President Robert Kocharian told Armenian television, "The mediators are doing the maximum possible within the framework of their mandate. From time to time, I ask myself what I would do in their place and I find it hard to answer."
On March 20 this year, Kocharian - whose successor Sarkisian was voted in last month - told a press conference in Yerevan that he wanted to see the negotiations continue in their current form.
He then issued a warning that "if Azerbaijan continues with its unconstructive steps, Armenia will recognise the independence of the Nagorny Karabakh Republic, and will sign a collective defence treaty with it".
This threat has been hinted at before, but never acted on.
The "Nagorny Karabakh Republic" unilaterally declared itself independent from Azerbaijan in1991. However, Yerevan has never formally recognised the breakaway territory as a sovereign state, nor has it moved to annex it.
In practical terms, Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh are now closely integrated with each other.
Last August, the opposition Heritage Party led by former Armenian foreign minister Raffi Hovannissian submitted a bill to parliament calling on Armenia to recognise the Nagorny Karabakh Republic. The bill did not come to a vote.
Hrair Karapetian, who heads the parliamentary faction of the nationalist Dashnaktsutiun party, told IWPR, "We continue to call for the unification of Nagorny Karabakh and Armenia, which has de facto already taken place."
He went on to add the proviso that "legal recognition of this reality will be possible only if further negotiations on resolving the Karabakh problem prove impossible."
Armenia's national budget consistently earmarks a credit line for Nagorny Karabakh.
In the view of Tigran Torosian, the speaker of Armenia's parliament, "By approving the state budget every year, the parliament of Armenia recognises the independence of the Nagorny Karabakh Republic."
US co-chairman Bryza warned that if Armenia moved towards formal recognition of Nagorny Karabakh, this would represent a "highly asymmetric response" to Azerbaijan's actions.
"Any move that prejudges the outcome of the negotiations that are under way, and that are achieving some real results in terms of moving closer to finalising the basic principles, would be unhelpful," Bryza told the Armenian Report newspaper in the United States. "And we looked at the UN GA [General Assembly] resolution of Azerbaijan in that very light - that it was a one-sided resolution that did not reflect the fair and balanced nature of the proposal on the table."
He added, "Similarly, if the Armenian side were to move unilaterally and prejudge the outcome of the negotiations by recognising Nagorno Karabakh, that would be something that is very seriously undermining the peace process."
Arif Yunus, a veteran specialist on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, based in Baku, said the current negotiations were certainly not working, but for a different reason - they were failing to engage with the public on either side of the conflict.
"We absolutely do have to pose the question of changing the format of the Minsk Group," said Yunus. "The co-chairmen have just turned into people who turn up at the negotiations. However, the problems of Nagorny Karabakh depend not on the co-chairmen, but on the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples."
Zarema Velikhanova is a freelance journalist in Baku. Ara Tadevosian is director of Mediamax news agency in Yerevan.
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