As it was reported on Armenian internet forums, government of Armenia banned access of Armenian internet users to the official website of the “Justice for Khojaly” International Civil Awareness Campaign (www.justiceforkhojaly.org)
Please go to the following link to read more about the news: ly.org/?p=nread&q=0
Source: www.justiceforkhojaly.org, 20 July 2009
War of words breaks out as public relations exercise by Baku representatives goes wrong.
By Samira Ahmedbeili in Baku, Sara Khojoian in Yerevan and Anahit Danielian in Stepanakert (CRS No. 501, 10-July-09)
A visit by Azerbaijani officials and cultural leaders to the self-declared state of Nagorno-Karabakh was intended to build ties with its ethnic Armenian rulers, but degenerated into the usual verbal sparring within days.
However, analysts were wrong-footed by an unusually conciliatory statement from Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliev after the trip, in which he appeared sympathetic to some Armenian demands.
Nagorny Karabakh, ruled by Armenians but internationally considered part of Azerbaijan, has been a block to good relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan since Soviet times.
More than a million refugees fled out of both countries before and during the war, which started in 1991 and ended with a ceasefire three years later. Since then, there have been almost no ties between the two neighbouring nations, while Karabakh declared independence unilaterally.
Armenian forces control some 14 per cent of what Azerbaijan considers to be its territory, and exchanges of fire are frequent over the line of control.
The visit to Karabakh, which started on July 3 and was headed by the ambassadors to Moscow of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, was intended to help ease the tensions.
“I want to stress that neither Armenians nor Azeris are going to fly off into space. We must live together, and therefore we need to create contacts, joint ties, create mutual respect between each other,” Polad Bulbuloglu, the Azerbaijan ambassador, told reporters in Karabakh.
But, even before he left the region, he had succeeded in offending the locals by following the terminology used in Azerbaijan to describe Karabakh. He met Bako Sahakian, leader of the self-proclaimed state, but presented it as just a meeting with local civil society figures, outraging political commentator David Babian.
“It is unacceptable that non-constructive statements should be made after a visit, as was done by this Polad Bulbuloglu and his delegates. President Bako Sahakian from the start of the visit held onto the principal of equality of the two sides, stressing that no other format was acceptable, including the so-called possibility of holding talks between two communities,” the commentator said.
“Such meetings are ineffective, since they once more make people angry, instead of creating an atmosphere of trust, as the authors insist.”
The misunderstandings pursued the delegates, who also visited Yerevan and Baku, throughout their journey. On returning to the Azerbaijani capital, one delegate told a local news agency that the Armenian president had told them he understood that Aghdam – a region of Azerbaijan outside Nagorny Karabakh itself which is almost entirely controlled by Armenian forces – was not Armenian land, and that he respected Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
The comments were disowned by a spokesman for the president, and provoked outrage in Yerevan.
“This is an arrogant lie,” President Serzh Sargsian’s spokesman said. “But we are no longer surprised that the Azerbaijani delegates distorted the facts when they returned to Baku, since they always do. The lack of tolerance from Azerbaijani society is clear.”
Similar distrust was sparked in Baku, where the supposed peacemakers found themselves suspected of selling out the interests of their country. Any suggestion that Karabakh is not actually part of Azerbaijan meets fury in Baku, and Akif Nagi, head of the Organisation for the Liberation of Karabakh, suggested that by meeting Sahakian, the delegates were effectively recognising his rule.
“As a result of such meetings the fact of the Armenian seizure of Azerbaijan’s territory retreats into the background. By making a statement… about visiting Karabakh through Azerbaijan’s territory, they present this as if it’s heroism. But if you meet the head of a separatist, puppet regime, and basically recognise his legitimacy, then it is unimportant how you got there,” Nagi said.
He also expressed disquiet that the delegation had included Mikhail Shvidkoy, the head of the Russian Cultural Agency, and appeared to have been initiated in Moscow. “The visit of the so-called Azerbaijan intelligentsia to Karabakh contradicts the interests of Azerbaijan. This visit was conducted at the orders of Russia. Russia is just demonstrating that the Karabakh conflict is completely under its control and that it can make the two sides play by its rules any time it wants,” he said.
Under the circumstances, therefore, it was not surprising that few observers expected positive results from the trip. However, comments from President Aliev to Russian television after the visit suggested a change of heart in Baku, which has previously been uncompromising in its opposition to any recognition of Armenian rights to Azerbaijan’s territory.
“As for the status of Nagorny Karabakh, that is a question of the future. A resolution of its status is not one of the proposals accepted by us and under discussion at the moment,” Aliev told Russia’s RTR television.
“Of course, Azerbaijan will never agree to the independence of Nagorny Karabakh. I think Armenia understands this. Today we must resolve the results of the conflict and secure an end of the occupation. The security of all nationalities in Karabakh must be secured, after which communication must be restored. We understand that Nagorny Karabakh must have a special status, and we see it as being within Azerbaijan.”
Despite Aliev’s uncompromising refusal to countenance independence for the region, those were still remarkably conciliatory remarks by the standards Baku has set since 1991.
“Over the last month there has been a flurry of activity in the Karabakh negotiations: an intense round of diplomacy, the visit of the intellectuals to Karabakh and the first visit by Armenians to Baku in a long time, [and] a more positive tone from many of the political leaders,” said Tom de Waal, an analyst from the NGO Conciliation Resources and an expert in Karabakh’s history.
“President Aliev adopted a more moderate tone than I can remember in an interview on the Karabakh issue. I was struck by the way he said that ‘we understand the concerns of the people of Karabakh’ and that he said that the status of Karabakh is a ‘matter for the future’. Now of course this was an interview to Russian television. I think things will really change only when the presidents say this kind of thing to a domestic audience, but it is a very positive signal.”
Samira Ahmedbeili, Sara Khojoian and Anahit Danielian are IWPR contributors.
Baku. Elbrus Seyfullayev – APA. “I saw Shusha as a town without development. I saw there about ten families. There might be at least 1000-1500 people in Shusha.
We visited Shusha mosque and Cidir Duzu, the plain of Horse Race. Then we visited the house of Polad Bulbuloglu’s father and took pictures there. I believe I will return to Shusha and t live there”, said MP Rovshan Rzayev after visiting Nagorno Karabakh. The parliamentarian highly appreciated the visit and said it took place as a result of President Ilham Aliyev’s policy. “We were instructed before the visit. All events scheduled in the visit program took place. The talks were normal and it was a step toward our returning to Karabakh in future”.
Rzayev said it seems Armenians are ready to step back because they understand that prolongation of the Karabakh problem is against their interests. They saw big difference between Baku and Yerevan and they understood that the peace agreement will promote their development.
Rzayev said they were negotiating the next visit to Nagorno Karabakh. The next meeting will be paid by larger delegation.
Armenia — Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglu (C) and members of his delegation meet with President Serzh Sarkisian in Yerevan on July 3, 2009.
An Azerbaijani delegation led by a prominent diplomat and public figure paid a rare visit to Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia on Friday as part of a Russian-backed initiative to rebuild bridges between the two estranged peoples.
“We are here to create relations between people,” Polad Bulbuloglu, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Russia, said after arriving in Stepanakert along with several Azerbaijani intellectuals, two of them parliament deputies.
The delegation crossed into Karabakh from a northern section of the heavily fortified Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact. Troops deployed there temporarily cleared the area of landmines to ensure the group’s safe passage.
The Azerbaijanis were accompanied by Mikhail Shvydkoy, a former Russian culture minister who acted on behalf of President Dmitry Medvedev. They were joined in Karabakh by Armen Smbatian, the Armenian ambassador in Moscow. Bulbuloglu and Smbatian already organized a similar trip two years ago.
“Unlike our first trip, we have had pretty heated debates here this time around,” Bulbuloglu told journalists after he and his companions met with Nagorno-Karabakh President Bako Sahakian, members of the Karabakh parliament and local intellectuals. He did not go into details.
Armenia — Polad Bulbuloglu in Yerevan on July 3, 2009.
Bulbuloglu, who had previously served Azerbaijan’s culture minister, said the initiative is aimed at strengthening trust between Armenians and Azerbaijanis and thereby facilitating a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh dispute. “Neither the Armenians, nor the Azerbaijanis are going to fly to outer space [for good,]” he said. “We have to live together. That is why we need to make contacts, to create relationships, to instill mutual respect.”
“Our peoples have for centuries lived side by side, and I am deeply convinced that after a certain number of years everything will be sorted out and we will again live together,” added the former popular singer.
The Azerbaijani visitors then traveled to the nearby town of Shushi, that had a predominantly Azerbaijani population before being captured by Karabakh Armenian forces in 1992. They went into a local house that belonged to Bulbuloglu’s late father.
The delegation proceeded to Yerevan later in the day to meet with President Serzh Sarkisian. “We have always been and remain of the opinion that it is possible to find solutions to difficult issues through cooperation and dialogue,” Sarkisian said, according to his office.
Joined by Smbatian and several other Armenians, the group traveled to Baku after the meeting. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev is due to meet them on Saturday.
Armenia — Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis holds a news conference in Yerevan on July 3, 2009.
Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis welcomed Armenia’s ongoing dialogue with Turkey and sounded optimistic about the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on Friday as she visited Yerevan in her capacity as chairwoman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Nagorno-Karabakh President Bako Sahakian asserted, however, the conflict is unlikely to be settled anytime soon.
The issue was high on the agenda of Bakoyannis’s talks with President Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian. She also met Sahakian in Yerevan late on Thursday.
“[Armenian-Azerbaijani] talks are at a critical point and I am encouraged by the political will expressed by both sides and the Minsk Group’s commitment to bring about positive results,” Bakoyannis told a news conference.
She announced that Sarkisian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev will again meet soon to try to “build on this momentum.” “We are optimistic that the meeting of the two presidents, which will take place in Moscow, will make progress on the issue,” she said.
International mediators acting under the aegis of the OSCE’s Minsk Group hope that Aliev and Sarkisian will remove the final obstacles to signing a framework peace accord when they meet later this month.
Armenia — Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis (R) meets the ethnic Armenian leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh in Yerevan on July 2, 2009.
Sahakian was far more pessimistic about peace prospects when he spoke to journalists after meeting with the Greek leader. “I don’t expect that we will register such success in the course of this year,” he said. “Not just this year but any other time. We can never anticipate a breakthrough as long as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic does not participate in the process.”
Sahakian did not say whether the authorities in Stepanakert agree with the existing basic principles of a Karabakh settlement put forward by the Minsk Group mediators. Some Karabakh officials have rejected the compromise formula as unacceptable.
Bakoyannis also discussed with the Armenian leaders other regional security issues and the dramatic rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey. “Armenia is an important country for stability in the South Caucasus,” she said. “While continuing political reforms at home, it has begun a sensitive dialogue with Turkey, it has demonstrated maturity and self-confidence that larger and stronger countries often miss.”
Nalbandian stood by his earlier assurances that the Turkish-Armenian dialogue may still yield tangible results despite recent statements by Turkish leaders. “We have reached some agreements to normalize relations and open the border without any preconditions,” he said.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish officials have repeatedly stated in recent months that Ankara will not establish diplomatic relations and open the Turkish-Armenian border until the Karabakh conflict is resolved.
https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1768646.html
The initial hopes that the change of administration in the U.S. would bring new momentum to the deadlocked Nagorno-Karabakh peace process are starting to fade. Although President Obama during the first months of his term in office pushed actively for the normalization of Turkish-Armenian and Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, not much has come out of this process. It is likely now that President Obama, just like his predecessor President Bush, will turn his attention to more global problems, like North Korea and Iraq, and thus forget the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict for the rest of his term.
BACKGROUND: When President Bush was elected, he was searching an opportunity for a foreign policy success. Officials at the State Department presented him with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as one of the world’s ripest for a breakthrough. Urgent high level talks between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia were arranged by U.S. officials in Key West in 2001 and a great push was made to convince both leaders to come to an agreement. Many analysts believe that the Key West talks were the closest the parties have ever come to a peace agreement in the past decade. Yet, both presidents felt hostage to their nationalistic home crowds and were unable to make compromises. Particularly, then Armenian President Robert Kocharian, fearing the fate of his predecessor Levon Ter Petrosian, shied away from committing to a step-by-step solution of the conflict, in which Armenia would first return the occupied Azerbaijani territories and only after that the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh would be determined.
The failed Key West talks, in which the US government invested heavily, including the personal involvement of then Secretary of State Colin Powell, led to a grave disappointment among the mediators. The conflict was put on the backburner for the rest of President Bush’s term in office. The September 11 terror attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq completely changed the foreign policy priorities of the U.S. and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was certainly not on the top list of urgent tasks for the State Department. Yet, much of the blame for the failure in the Key West talks can actually be placed on the US officials themselves. They rushed for a breakthrough without a proper understanding of the conflict’s realities, without proper involvement of Russia, Armenia’s key military ally, and without much change in the balance of power on the ground.
Without proper preparations, it would be very naïve to expect a breakthrough in the conflict.
A similar picture now arises with President Obama. Right after his election, he started pushing for the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations. His agenda was clear: make a breakthrough in bilateral Turkish-Armenian relations and use this as an excuse not to use the “G” word when referring to the events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire. It was clear that President Obama did not want to use the “G” word and thus ruin the important relations with strategic ally Turkey. But simultaneously he needed to either keep his campaign promise or get out of the situation with a very solid excuse. Therefore, a very heavy diplomatic push started mounting on Turkey to open its border with Armenia.
Many analysts believed that by opening the border, Turkey could engage Armenia more and thus reduce the latter’s dependence on Russia. Others saw little practical change in the situation on the ground as Armenia’s economy, military and security is practically in the hands of Russia. Thus, a one-sided opening of the border would only damage Turkish-Azerbaijani relations and cause a rift between the two strategic U.S. partners in the region. As a result, the balance of power in the region would shift and the fate of the Nabucco gas pipeline and other mega-projects would be put at risk. After April 24, when both President Obama and the Turkish government managed to avoid the potential disaster in U.S.-Turkish relations, things have calmed down. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan traveled to Baku and assured his Azerbaijani friends that Turkey would never open the border before the occupied Azerbaijani lands are liberated. There also seems to be substantial progress in Turkish-Azerbaijan talks on the issue of transiting Azerbaijani gas to the European markets through Turkey. Thus, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is once again on its way down on the U.S. agenda for the region.
IMPLICATIONS: It is likely that President Obama, after his initial excitement over the potential normalization of Turkish-Armenian and Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, is going to pay less and less attention to this part of the world. In that respect, he will repeat President Bush’s path. Initial diplomatic activity during both presidential terms would produce many hopes, but no concrete results. Thus, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would again be put on the shelf.
There are some clear signs of this trend already. In the latest peace talks in Prague, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian made no breakthrough on the terms of an agreement, despite high expectations and hopes. On the contrary, the Azerbaijani side came out of the meeting in a very frustrated mood, saying that Armenia makes no changes in its stubborn and unconstructive approach to the solution of the conflict. The hopeful remarks by U.S. mediator Matt Bryza also irritated official Baku, which accused Mr. Bryza of distorting the information and purposefully sending optimistic news to the State Department leadership whereas the real situation on the ground remained stagnant.
There are fears that the upcoming meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents in St. Petersburg will put a final end to all hopes for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the nearest future. No major breakthrough is expected during this meeting and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is likely to enter another 4 years of boredom and stagnation. The U.S. administration has to shift its focus to the North Korean peninsula, and its relations with Russia, Iran and Iraq.
CONCLUSIONS: It has become a recurring pattern that after a change in the U.S. government, the new President rushes to score a foreign policy success by pushing for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This is usually done without much change on the ground and without a proper understanding of the conflict. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is very much an international conflict. Russia’s role in it is huge and the U.S. administration will never be able to resolve it without properly addressing the role of Russia and without taking into consideration the factor of Armenia’s dependence on Russia.
Pushing for an immediate breakthrough and desperately wishing to see immediate successes lead to quick disappointments, after which the US administration forgets about the conflict and hesitates to organize another high level push for its solution. It would be better if the U.S. administration would not push for quick resolution of the conflict, for which the parties are not ready, but instead maintained a high level interest in the conflict throughout the whole presidential term and gradually prepared the ground work for a final resolution. This conflict can only be resolved through preparing a solid ground work and shifting the balance of power in the region. Investing all hopes in the initial months of negotiation will inevitably produce disappointment in the end.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Fariz Ismailzade is a political analyst based in Baku, Azerbaijan.
http://www.cacianalyst.org/?q=node/5130