Nagorno-Karabakh and Kosovo

Elmira Tariverdiyeva, Baku. Exclusively to VK

On July 19, Nagorno-Karabakh held so-called presidential elections. Azerbaijan called them a provocation. Baku was furious that there were people who went to Nagorno-Karabakh as observers – they came to observe an illegal procedure in a territory which is not recognized as an independent state by any country of the world.

The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, made a statement on “the presidential elections” and noted that the European Union didn’t recognize the constitutional and legal limits within which they would be held. These “elections” should not damage the determination of the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh. The position was supported by Lithuania, Hungary, Switzerland, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Romania and Georgia. The leading mediators on the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh – the OSCE Minsk Group – also made statements that none of three countries that co-chair the OSCE MG or any other country in the world recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state.

The co-chairs emphasized that the procedure which took place on July 19 didn’t determine the legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh or the results of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Russia made its own separate statement. “We, as well as other countries of the world, do not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state and we don’t think the so-called elections could define the future peacemaking process around the territory,” the official representative of the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Lukashevich said.

However, an MP from the LDPR, Alexander Balberov, came from Moscow to observe “the elections.” “Vladimir Zhirinovsky and we, MPs, will do our best for the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to be recognized someday,” Balberov said, comparing Kosovo and Karabakh. Baku considered the statement as strange – Kosovo is governed by the UN, while military men of the EU provide security guarantees. At the same time, no country has recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state, while Kosovo is recognized by more than 80 countries, and they say that the Kosovo case cannot be a precedent for other territorial conflicts. Kosovo doesn’t recognize Nagorno-Karabakh, while Armenia, which urges recognition of Karabakh, doesn’t recognize Kosovo. Probably Armenia doesn’t want to irritate Moscow.

Meanwhile, separatist regimes stand in their own light. Non-recognized and hsemi-recognized states will never be involved in the processes of regional trading and economic or transit-infrastructural cooperation. People who live, for example, in Karabakh will always be threatened by the possibility of the conflict renewing. People don’t want independence anymore, they want to live a normal life, because they have only one life.