WHAT ARE ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES ASHAMED OF?
The attitude to Karabakh is one of the most important components of
the process between Armenia and Europe and the global opening of the
South Caucasus.
Apparently, the West has proposed to Armenia and Azerbaijan to
forget for a while about the Karabakh conflict, to open the borders
and restore communication, and only then, proceeding from the new
realities, set to the political settlement of the issue. Apparently,
however, Azerbaijan is not ready for such a decision, and this is
the reason why Baku stopped its active participation in Eastern
Partnership.
Armenia is apparently satisfied with the option offered Europe although
no one knows what it is. The EU Commissioner Stefan Fule, for example,
proposed to publish the text of the Association Agreement with the
EU but the Armenian authorities prefer not to do that. One can only
guess the reason. It is possible that there are certain obligations
on Karabakh in the text that the Armenian authorities do not want to
publish in advance, especially because it is not known whether the
agreement will be initialed or not.
The Armenian society should know Europe’s stipulations for the
Association Agreement. The EU may propose to preserve Karabakh and
establish a European customs office on the border between Armenia
and NKR, Armenia may unite with Karabakh, restoration of regional
communications is also possible. But the “bad” option is not ruled
out either, such as a small war, deployment of “peacekeepers” and
demarcation along the line Russia and the West will discuss.
In order to avoid a “bad” option, Yerevan should clarify what
Karabakh’s European integration means. Since Fule calls to publish the
text, Europe is not ashamed of it. But will the Armenian authorities
be ashamed?
The meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan with
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs showed that the Karabakh settlement won’t
move on by the end of the year. In autumn elections are scheduled
in Azerbaijan and this is a reason for time out. However, Armenia
is going to sign the Association Agreement in November. Will this
mean that Europe proposed to remove Karabakh from the agenda of the
EU-Armenia relations? Or does Serzh Sargsyan use the Karabakh issue
to postpone the initialing?
Naira Hayrumyan 13:57 15/07/2013 Story from Lragir.am News:
From: Baghdasarian