S. SARGSYAN: I WENT THROUGH THE WAR – THAT IS WHY I DO NOT WANT A NEW WAR
Today, President Serzh Sargsyan received the OSCE Ambassadors who
are in Yerevan in the framework of a regional visit. Press service
of Armenian President informs about this.
At the meeting, discussed were issues pertinent to the regional
security and the NK peace process. At the request of the guests,
President Serzh Sargsyan the steps taken by the Armenian authorities
in recent years and future programs aimed at the safeguarding of the
Republic’s security, implementation in our country of the democratic
and institutional reforms.
Armenian President delivered a speech during the meeting as well. He
especially said:
“Distinguished Ambassadors, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am glad to greet
you in the Presidential Palace and welcome you to Armenia.
OSCE is a very important organization for Armenia not only because this
Organization has in its framework several institutions – the Minsk
Group, the High-level Planning Group, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office’s
Personal Representative – all of them dealing with the Nagorno Karabakh
problem, but also because the OSCE principles and the comprehensive
concept of security fully correspond to our vision. It is extremely
important that in the framework of this Organization we agreed that
security of one country cannot be provided at the expense of security
of another country. We meticulously implement all our commitments.
However, recently an event has taken place, which makes us to seriously
reconsider some of our approaches. As you know, in Azerbaijan pardon
was immediately granted to a creature which committed a horrendous
crime; unfortunately, in our view this event was not the last case in
a row. Everything started when in 2007 the OSCE Minsk Group presented
its proposal for the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Many
would recall how Azerbaijan rejected the document; then it made a
declarative statement that the document in general was acceptable,
but afterwards it was trying to give its own interpretations to the
principles enshrined in the document. You can recall how they were
trying to interpret the people’s right to self-determination. You
remember how they were trying to interpret the term “referendum.” And
then a show began which was meant to gain time, to accumulate huge
amount of armaments so that at the opportune moment the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict could be solved through the military means.
In our view, pardoning a murderer was not intended to increase
Aliyev’s rating at home – it was an attempt to test the response of the
international community to Azerbaijan’s outrageous moves. It cannot be
any other way because in Azerbaijan and among its leadership, there
are, I believe, many people who could clearly see the consequences
such a move could have entailed. And the testing of the international
community’s patience, as I said, has started long ago: many years
ago, when Azeris began to blatantly violate the obligations provided
by the CFE Treaty (Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe),
and nobody responded to those blatant violations.
When the Azeri President publicly instructed his Academia to write a
history for Azerbaijan where Armenians must not be mentioned at all,
nobody paid attention to that fact. When Aliyev stated publicly that
Yerevan and the entire territory of Armenia is the Azeri soil, nobody
reacted to that statement. When Aliyev declared publicly that their
number one enemy is the Armenian people world-wide and that the enemy
must be destroyed, again there was no retort. In response to all our
warnings, all requests we have made to the Co-chairs, to the rest
of the world that it was a beginning of a very dangerous process we
were receiving improper responses that Aliyev’s statements were meant
for domestic consumption. Such a discrepancy between the domestic
and external audiences simply cannot be true – a person cannot think
one way in the morning, and another way in the evening; one way on
Monday, and another way on Thursday. Seeing such lenience toward these
statements, Aliyev took up actions. The first one took place during
the regional visit of the US Secretary of State: several subversive
actions were instigated not only on the Line of Contact but also at
the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. And again the response was a weak one.
And as I have said, unfortunately, this is not the end of it.
You know that I went through the war – that is why I do not want a new
war. I personally felt on my own skin the consequences of the war,
its impact. And I believe that no State concerned with security in
our region wants a war either. However, that desire is not enough –
actions should be and those actions must begin with calling spade a
spade. The so-called “diplomatic correctness” in this case is simply
detrimental for the security of this region.
Recently, in Armenia a sarcastic joke appeared. It sounds like this:
after these events, the international X organization calls upon
Armenia and Azerbaijan not to axe each other in sleep. And this is
not a joke to cheer you up; it reflects our people’s attitude towards
those international organizations which are trying to introduce
parity between the victim and the perpetrator, between the guilty
and the innocent. And that is extremely bad. I request you, I urge
your Governments and our Organization to substantially deal with
this issue”.
07.09.12, 18:31
From: A. Papazian