ARMENIA COPES ITSELF
Naira Hayrumyan

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 12:12:00 – 24/10/2011

Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, who arrived in Yerevan last week
and went to Azerbaijan crossing the Karabakh-Azerbaijan border, did
not make any statements on the conflict settlement. To the contrary,
all their statements seemed work-outs of new mechanisms of repression
of tensions on the contact line.

The Co-Chairs did not go into details of what concrete mechanisms
they mean. In an interview to Interfax, Minister of Foreign Affairs
of Armenia Edward Nalbandyan, actually, confirmed that a couple of
days ago in Wien Azerbaijan refused the proposal to withdraw the
snipers and other means. What else can the Co-Chairs propose?

As we know, Armenia has been recently stating about its own mechanism
of repression: the point is about punitive actions and elimination of
Azerbaijani snipers. The Defense Ministry of Armenia openly publishes
information about this and it does not cause any reaction by the
international community. Apparently, everyone understands that this
is the only way to hold back Azerbaijan.

Co-Chairs try other means too. Say, in the course of this visit, they
met with Catholicos Garegin II and discussed the Karabakh issue. It
was found out that in November the meeting of religious heads of the
Caucasus, naturally mediated by Russia, is planned in Yerevan, and
the religious leader of Azerbaijan is also going to visit Armenia. It
is unclear what the Co-Chairs expect from them: what will change if
the religious pastors call on the peoples to peace. Russia will just
demonstrate that it keeps facilitating the settlement process.

There is one more “version” of repression, which the Co-Chairs see
as possible, but the most controversial one – the deployment of
peacekeepers. Russia is evidently trying to find the hole and lead
its troops to Karabakh. But the U.S. and France apparently create
obstacles: if they do not want to deploy troops in Karabakh, they do
not want to see the Russian troops there either.

This is the reason why Co-Chairs do not react to the information by
the Armenian party on punitive operations. They want to show that
they understand Armenia and think it is able to cope itself with all
risks without Russian peacekeepers.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress