Baku / 14.02.18 / Turan: Former Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Tofig Zulfugarov, for many years directly involved in the Karabakh settlement, expressed his attitude to the commentaries on the possible breakthrough in the peace process after the presidential elections in the two countries, discussed in the latest Armenian and Azerbaijani media.
These comments, reminiscent of the organized information leakage, are based on some new ideas of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs submitted to the parties in Krakow in January.
Judging by the leaks, we are talking about the idea of staged, so-called "small packages". "To people who have never participated in the negotiation process this "creative nonsense" does not say anything," Zulfugarov wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday. https://www.facebook.com/tofig.zulfugarov/posts/346381095879699
Therefore, the ignorant has a feeling that something new is being set up by the co-chairmen, and taking into account the transfer of the presidential elections in Azerbaijan from October to April, he can believe that "there is encouraging progress in the negotiation process."
In order to understand what the idea of "small packages" is, it is necessary to provide a retrospective analysis of the Minsk process. After the mandate of the Minsk Conference was adopted in Helsinki on 24 March 1992, in May the Armenian side occupied the Shusha and Lachin regions. The mandate of the Minsk Conference presupposed the determination of the political status of Nagorno-Karabakh. But the agreed decision to convene the Minsk Conference and start discussing the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh became impossible to realize, because of the occupation of the two regions.
Then, at the initiative of US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in Lisbon (again Lisbon), it was decided to convene negotiations for the Extraordinary Preliminary Meeting of the Minsk Group in Rome in order to eliminate the consequences of the occupation and open the way for the convening of the Minsk Conference on the definition of the status.
That is, the entire international community recognized the Minsk Conference the only place where the future political status of Nagorno-Karabakh was to be discussed. No other structure, including the Minsk Group, has the mandate to organize and conduct any negotiations related to the definition of the political status.
The overwhelming majority of the proposals of the Minsk Group co-chairs concerned only the problem of finding solutions to create the conditions for the Minsk Conference and the main condition is the liberation of all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
"Namely, their goal and task, as I repeat, was the elimination of the consequences of the occupation of the territory of Azerbaijan, the return of displaced persons and thereby creating the conditions for the opening of the Minsk Conference, where the future political status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be determined through negotiations," Zulfugarov continues.
The Minsk Group carried out mediation and negotiated to prepare the Preliminary Agreement to fulfill its main task described above.
In the Preliminary Agreement in our case, the Minsk Group had to determine the obligations of the Armenian side - to liberate the occupied territories, thereby creating a condition for "a dignified and safe return of the displaced persons to their homes." The Azerbaijani side, in turn, had to ensure, as well as the Armenian side, the implementation of a complex of military-technical measures to ensure the safety of the returning population and to implement measures ensuring guaranteed non-resumption of hostilities.
Among the military-technical measures, emphasis was laid on the withdrawal and concentration of heavy weapons in specially designated areas, the declaration of a no-fly zone and the deployment of a peacekeeping operation to ensure the implementation of other security measures.
Apparently, military-technical measures do not imply granting any political status to Nagorno-Karabakh. Sometimes a complex of military-technical measures is called a temporary status, as it is possible to add political guarantees not to resume military operations, in the form of a special UN Security Council resolution in support of the agreement reached. But all this is certainly not a political status, which, as mentioned above, should be determined only at the Minsk Conference.
"And today it turns out that in Krakow we are offered small packages in which Armenians will exchange parts of the occupied territories for part of their political status. This is of course a complete logical nonsense. For it is impossible to exchange the occupied Agdam region for a part of the political status, which determines, for example, the future tax system of the autonomy. Especially in conditions when Armenians are not going to negotiate an autonomous status. And even if they agree to negotiate the release of the Agdam region in exchange for "status clauses on regulating tax laws," they will defend the version that defines the tax system of an independent state. This logical analysis is absolutely applicable to all the other main components of the provisions on the political status: the electoral system, security issues, provisions for the delineation of powers, regulation of external relations, and so on. That is, in Krakow, in fact, we are offered a dead-end direction, which is certainly doomed to failure," Zulfugarov further writes.
Moreover, as the former Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan emphasizes, the idea of "small packages" arose a long time ago and was written by former Russian representative to the OSCE Minsk Group Vladimir Kazimirov. He proposed it, being Co-Chairman of the Minsk Conference on one of the rounds of negotiations. But it was rejected, and then Heydar Aliyev obtained from Yevgeny Primakov (the then head of the Russian Foreign Ministry) the removal of V. Kazimirov from the negotiation process, and he was sent as ambassador to Costa Rica.
The revival of this idea in January 2018 is surprising in terms of sound logic.
"The explanation is simple: the "theater" called the Minsk Group needs to create new scenery for an endless play called Minsk Group negotiations. I would advise Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov to get acquainted with this analysis, and I am sure he will. I hope that, realizing the logic stated above, he will no longer evaluate the "idea of small packages" as promising," Zulfugarov wrote in conclusion. -06D--
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