Stepan Gregoryan: “Azerbaijan sends positive impulses to Armenia”

The Armenian Parliament has declined to ratify the bill on the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's independence proposed by the opposition ‘Heritage’ group, seeing it as an inappropriate one for the moment. Only 13 MPs voted for the bill and none of the coalition parliamentary groups took part in the vote at all. Stepan Gregoryan, the chairman of the board of administration of the Analytical Center, shares his opinion on the matter with VK Media agency.

- How could you comment on the recent vote in the Armenian Parliament on the Karabakh issue?

- I think that unilateral recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh's independence could only aggravate the situation in the region. First of all, the OSCE Minsk Group still exists, which hosts multilateral negotiations, slow as they are, but are still more adequate than any unilateral solution. Any action taken by one of the conflicting parties without consulting the other may lead to war.

Second of all, such recognition would be a sort of defiance of the Minsk Group co-chairs - Russia, France and the USA - who are working hard to find a solution acceptable to everyone. So by accepting that bill, the Armenian Parliament would declare its disinterest in Russia's opinion and efforts.

I would like to draw your attention towards one nuance in the Armenian President’s address to the OSCE Astana Summit. He declared that Armenia could recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh only in the case of Azerbaijan starting hostilities. In this case, Armenia would be compelled to recognize Karabakh’s sovereignty and to sign a defense pact with its authorities. But now, while the Minsk Group negotiations are in progress, such a recognition would be a huge mistake.

 

- The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia held a closed meeting in Moscow on December 9. Could this meeting have moved the talks from their deadlock?

- I think that the very definition – ‘deadlock – is incorrect. I’ve already pointed out the importance of the Astana declaration on the Karabakh issue in my address to the Baku Conference on EU relations with South Caucasian countries. The Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia not only signed up to the Madrid principles of resolving the conflict, but also agreed to the principles proclaimed by Russia, the
USA and France at the ‘G-8’ Summit in Canada. So there is no ‘deadlock’ in the talks, and there is a great positive role on the part of Russia in the existing progress. For example, I can cite the Astrakhan meeting, at which the conflicting parties agreed to exchange their prisoners of war.

So I can sum up that there are definitely positive signals from Azerbaijan. I personally witnessed the reconstruction of an Armenian church in Baku. The recent meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow demonstrates the efficiency of a non-stop negotiation process.

- To sum up, what prognosis can you make on the dynamics of the talks?

- I think that the mechanisms of direct presidential contacts should not be used too often. They’ve already laid the foundations and now it’s up to the foreign ministers to negotiate. And I think it would be appropriate to formulate a schedule for their meetings (preferably one meeting in a month), to prevent existing tensions boiling over. At the same time, we should increase the level of trust between the parties.

- What do you think, did the danger of direct hostilities fade away after the Astana Summit?

- Yes, I’m pretty sure of that. Russia, the USA and France (and thus the EU) made it perfectly clear that they won’t stand for any hostilities, and this message is aimed at the all ‘hot spots’ of the post-Soviet space.

Interview by Evgeny Krishtalev, exclusively to VK