Co-chairs want to make sure the border is calm
15-01-2008 15:01:52 – KarabakhOpen
The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will participate in the monitoring of
the line of contact between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and
Karabakh, the Azerbaijani ministry of defense reported.
Yesterday the co-chairs were to arrive in Karabakh. They changed the
time and place of the news conference in Yerevan and finally cancelled
it.
Apparently, the co-chairs want to have a talk with the government of
Karabakh. Ostensibly, the Armenian government has agreed to certain
proposals offered by the co-chairs, and left responsibility for other
issues up to Karabakh. Something like we agree while Karabakh disagrees.
Such a turn is possible at least because last year the government of
Karabakh changed, which has adopted a more rigid stance regarding both
the basic issues of settlement and the participation of NKR in the
talks. By the way, when in 2006 the president of NKR Arkady Ghukasyan
urged Armenia to leave the talks and let Karabakh participate in the
negotiations, Robert Kocharyan reacted rather harshly, noting that
`there is no need to fish in troubled water’. Now the Armenian
government though weakly but insists on the participation of Karabakh
in the talks.
The second reason why the co-chairs want to visit Karabakh might be to
make sure the information the Azerbaijani media daily post on the
Internet is true. It is first of all the information on skirmishes at
the border. For some time now the Azerbaijani ministry releases daily
reports on the situation at the line of contact, reporting every
gunshot. In addition, according to Azerbaijan, all the skirmishes are
the fault of the Armenian force.
The purpose of this information policy is to produce the impression
that the situation at the border is unstable and may escalate into a
war at any moment. In addition, the Armenians will be to blame because
the Azerbaijanis are defending themselves.
This behavior is also caused by Baku’s wish to have peacekeepers
deployed along the line of contact, who the Azerbaijani government
thinks will be easier to persuade than the Armenians. Otherwise, they
would not spend so much money and effort to present the border routine
as preparations for military actions. Even despite the fact that the
Azerbaijani military experts state that the situation at the line of
contact has not changed since the truce was signed in 1994.
The OSCE will conduct monitoring of the line of contact near Aghdam on
January 16. The field assistants of the personal representatives of the
OSCE CiO Imre Palatinus and Antal Gerdich will conduct the monitoring
on the side of Azerbaijan.
On the side of Karabakh the personal representative of the OSCE CiO
Andrzej Kasprzyk and his field assistants Jaslan Nurtazin, Peter Kee
and Miroslav Vymetal will monitor the line of contact.
The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will participate in the monitoring on
the Armenian side of the line of contact.