YEREVAN—Armenia welcomed a statement by the presidents of the US, France and Russia issued Thursday in Deauville, France, in which the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to finalize the “Basic Principles” of the Karabakh negotiations. On Friday, official Baku pointed fingers at Yerevan for delaying the process.
“The statement made today in the sidelines of the G8 Summit in Deauville by the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, contains important messages and may become an impetus for the settlement of the issue,” said Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian in a statement posted on the ministry’s official Web site.
“Armenia has always been in support of the settlement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh through exclusively peaceful means and has repeatedly proven that in practice, therefore, it is clear to whom is addressed the unequivocal message of the statement in this regard,” added Nalbandian.
“Armenia has given a clear answer to the latest version of the basic principles proposed by the three Co-Chairs as a basis for the negotiations of the settlement. If Azerbaijan gives an unequivocal agreement, then it will be possible to register a progress in the process of the settlement. It is apparent to whom is addressed the message included in the statement in this regard, too,” concluded Nalbandian.
A senior aide to President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said Baku shares the sense of urgency of the three mediating powers. They claimed that Thursday’s joint statement by Presidents Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev heightened pressure on Armenia.
“It follows from the statement that Armenia must start the withdrawal of its armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement cited by Azerbaijani news agencies.
“Unfortunately … Armenia continues to drag out that process and thereby impede the conflict’s peaceful resolution,” it said.
“As a matter of fact, the negotiating process has dragged on because of the Armenian side,” Novruz Mammadov, Aliyev’s chief foreign policy adviser, told Day.az.
Both the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry and Mammadov dwelled on only one element of the proposed settlement: the liberated territories surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. They did not mention other provisions such as a future referendum on the status of the disputed territory mainly populated by Armenians.
The Foreign Ministry statement only spoke of “determining the future status of that region within Azerbaijan.”
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Withdrawal of any military troops from strategic military sites is unacceptable for two reasons:
1) Those military sites are liberated territories once occupied by Armenians of Arstakh (Formerly known as Nagorno Karabagh) throughout the 20th century who were then bombarded in a failed attempt to drive them off their own ancestral lands by Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing campaigns.
2) Military forces do not withdraw from their own lands only to have aggressive neighbors move in and falsely claim said lands as their own. No military in the history of the world has done this and our military is not about to set precedence on this matter either. Neither Arstakh nor its surrounding areas have ever rightfully belonged to Azeris, instead, all of these lands along with Nakichevan and most of Azerbaijan were illegitimately “gifted” to these mongrel Turks by the Bolsheviks during the dawn of the 20th century, this is an undisputed fact, the Turks know this, NATO knows this, and the Russians know this. If any of the said lands had belonged to the Azeris, both NATO and the Russians would have acted swiftly for return of said lands. The fact that both these significant world powers are practicing a policy of “detente” with regards to war and only serving as mitigators of a greater process says leaps and bounds about the factuality of the situation.
Armenians have occupied those lands as their own for thousands of years, the name “Azeri” is a fabrication and fictitious creation of post World War I policy by the two powers that were set to benefit from such machinations, A) Bolsheviks (as illegitimate sponsors of a previously non existent “Azeri” populace and state) and B) Post Ottoman Turkey, that tagged a bunch of its mongrel citizens with the moniker “Azeri” to accept the illegitimate “gifting” of Armenian lands by the Bolsheviks.
Nothing will every be given back, if anything it’s time Armenians started to do a bit of saber rattling of our own for the occupied lands of Nakichevan on which nearly 10,000 Armenian headstones and grave sites existed and were systematically destroyed in 2005 as a means of erasing archeological trace as well as evidence of factual historic Armenian claims to Nakichevan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZu2zqFE_gI
Armenia must prepare for another real possibility of war, one crushing defeat was not enough for the Azeris, another pummeling is in order. All of their saber rattling must be replied with some of our own and we must be ready to make good on our threats. This time, the campaign must be carried out all the way to Baku to the goat herder Aliyev’s doorstep. Armenians in Armenia, Arstakh (Formerly known as Nagorno Karabagh), and in the Diaspora are/must be ready. Our united Diasporan, Arstakh, Armenian front must be made stronger, more vicious, and more merciless when it comes to dealing with our enemies and those that would see us perish.
Armenians have suffered from Genocide and a centuries long campaign of denials of the rape, murder, and killing of our children and our families. Enough is enough, we have drawn the line, those that dare cross it in the 21st century will suffer the consequences either by direct force, or by guerilla warfare, if anything, we have proven in the 20th century that we are just as capable of merciless killing and guerilla warfare as the Israelis as well as all other paramilitary groups, we only have chosen not to as of late for the sake of diplomatic discourse in defending our basic human rights, but violence is never off the table if our homeland, way of life, and future is at stake.
Very well said Norin Radd.
one more thing Norin: in addition to the destroyed headstones, an Armenian populated Nakhichevan was reduced to about 40% Armenian by 1917, and now it is 0%.
The same fate would have befallen Artsakh, if Armenians had not defended themselves by force of arms – and did it very successfully.
were not giving up kelbajar or any of the surrounding territoroes!
i dont trust them.
I hate to say this but Azerbaijan is winning the propaganda war over Artsakh while Sargsian twiddles his thumbs. Azeri propaganda is crude yet effective.
If I were not Armenian, I would be thinking that Azerbaijan was the victim and that Armenians were the ethnic cleansers. The opposite is true, but Armenians have lost the public relations initiative. That means that the world’s sympathies are with Azeris. Get with it, folks, and wake up to the Azeri campaign or we are going to lose.
It is Azerbaijan , who is still occupying Kedashen, Mardunashen, and large parts of Mardagerd,
Kantzag, and the balance of the plains of Artsakh, as well as the whole region of Nakhitchevan.
Armenia should only negotiate the withdrawal of the Azeri forces from all the above mentioned
regions, and the International Community has to punish the Azeri Pogroms and Genocidal Acts
carried out against Armenian innocent unarmed civilian citizens in Baku, Sumgait and Kantzag!!! (7)
I do not understand why Armenia lets a genocide-denying nation, the U.S., have any say in any of this. I do not understand why Armenia lets Russia, which will not allow a statue of Antranig in Sochi, to have a say in any of this. As for the lousy French, have they ever apologized for betraying us after WW I? Has Russia? Has the US?
You know, Armenia is just so stupid it hard to fathom. And Armenia acts like nothing has happened when it continues to negotiate with Azerbaijan after the latter has violated the ceasefire and murdered Armenians and destroyed the ancient cemetery in Julfa.
How dumb is Armenia’s leadership to allow itself to be outflanked on the public relations front?
Azerbaidjan continues to leave in a dream world. Artsakh is a de facto independent state and will never return under the opressive Azeri rule.