Orkhan Sattarov, the head of the European Office of Vestnik Kavkaza
Vestnik Kavkaza has recently published a resonant article about German citizens who arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh and decided to monitor the 'parliamentary elections' in the unrecognized republic. (See 'Who are German observers at the ‘elections’ in Nagorno-Karabakh?')
After a brief inspection, it turned out that the information about the personalities of the 'observers', originally spread in the Armenian media, was either inaccurate, or deliberately false. Later, however, we were able, in spite of the confusion with the misspelled names of Germans in the Armenian media, to find out that Luzak Stephan and Sven Diderich travelled to Karabakh. But has Die Linke actually sent its representatives to Nagorno-Karabakh?
Today the editors of Vestnik Kavkaza received an official response from Die Linke to the request which VK sent in connection with the visit. As we expected, the party does not know about the actions of its members. "Mr. Luzak and Mr. Diderich are members of our party, but they made the trip without the knowledge or consent of the party, and certainly not on behalf of the party. They had no authority to represent our party in Nagorno-Karabakh," Die Linke said.
"The foreign policy positioning of our party is formulated solely by responsible elected officials and members of the relevant party bodies, as well as employees of the relevant departments of the party administration. The position of our party on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh has not changed. We will bring these aspects to the notice of Mr. Luzak and Mr. Diderich," the head of department of international politics in the party administration, Andreas Guenther, stressed.
It should be noted that Die Linke, as well as all the other parties represented in the Bundestag, does not recognize the regime of the Karabakh separatists, considering the problem to be an inter-state conflict between two sides – Armenia and Azerbaijan. Die Linke widely supports Russia's peacekeeping efforts in the region, stands for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and stresses the need to resolve it on the basis of the principles of international law. The party believes that the one of the main preconditions of the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, first of all, is the de-occupation of Azerbaijani regions around Nagorno-Karabakh and the return of 610,000 Azerbaijanis to their homes. In return, Azerbaijan, according to the party, should provide security guarantees for the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. These measures will help to significantly reduce the risk of renewal of military activities in the region and to win enough time to determine the political status of Nagorno-Karabakh with the democratic participation of both groups of the region in the process.
A Berlin political scientist, Heiko Langner, the author of 'Crisis Zone – South Caucasus', commenting on the clumsy attempt by the Karabakh separatists to give legal status to the visit of the members of Die Linke, said that "it goes without saying that the unrecognized regime is trying to use the presence of international observers in their desire for diplomatic recognition, doing a dramatization of a democratic state. It is even possible to understand, based on their political logic."
But, according to Langner, these attempts are doomed to fail for two reasons: "Firstly, there is always a doubt that we are talking about a truly independent election observation. It would be interesting to know which organizations have been invited to observe the 'parliamentary elections' recently held in Nagorno-Karabakh, and who paid their expenses."
As the political scientist noted, none of the parties represented in the Bundestag sent their delegates to Karabakh. Thus, we are talking about informal observing delegations, even if some of these delegates are members of political parties in Germany.
"Secondly, the states could get diplomatic recognition only from other states: their national governments, not individuals. This requires the material prerequisites of statehood (state territory, the government and the people), as well as diplomatic recognition should not cause problems in international relations," Langner stressed. "In the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, these preconditions are not sufficiently met, since there is only a stabilized de facto regime. For this reason, no country in the world has recognized Nagorno-Karabakh, including Armenia itself. And the 'parliamentary elections' will change nothing, even if they are formally held democratically," the expert summed up.
