PROCLAMATION OF THE NKR IS THE ONLY TRUE SOLUTION
Friday, 29 August 2014 16:15
On September 2, the entire Armenian nation will celebrate the
anniversary of the proclamation of the NagornoKarabakhRepublic. On
this day in 1991, a joint session of the Nagorno Karabakh regional and
Shahumian district Soviets of People’s Deputies adopted the
Declaration on the Proclamation of the NKR. From the historical and
political points of view, this day, marking a new stage of the
Karabakh National-Liberation Movement, became an important milestone
in the fate of Artsakh and defined the future path of its development.
It was the Declaration on the proclamation of the NKR that
initiated the process of establishing an independent state, which
today, 23 years later, can be rightfully considered an established
reality.
Today’s younger generation of Artsakh may not be fully
aware of the complicated twists and turns of the National-Liberation
Movement and takes the reality of the NagornoKarabakhRepublicas a
fact. We believe that there is nothing reprehensible in this, because
the fact in itself proves that today’s youth of Artsakh, which grew up
in a free and independent country, cannot imagine itself in a
different condition, in a different reality. However, it should know
that the freedom was achieved at a high price, and the path to real
independence was through hard trials, having become a visible
testimony of the courage, honor and dignity, steadfast will and
determination of the people of Artsakh in their aspiration to build
and strengthen their hard-won statehood.
The process of creation and development of the viable
Karabakh statehood passed and is passing in extremely difficult
conditions of confrontation with Azerbaijan, which committed
unprecedented in their cruelty acts of mass murder and massacre
against the Armenian population, set a blockade on Nagorno Karabakh,
which hasn’t been lifted so far, and then unleashed a war. Thehostile
actions of the Baku regime are still underway, 20 years after the
ceasefire establishment. The Azerbaijani authorities, actually, resort
to almost any means, including clearly criminal, to impede the
political, social-economic, and cultural development of our country. A
special place in the foreign policy of Azerbaijan is occupied by
distortion of the essence of the Karabakh conflict, substitution of
the legitimate and legal bases of the proclamation of the
NagornoKarabakhRepublicby pseudo-legal theses that have nothing to do
with the reality. From many reputable platforms,Azerbaijan, in order
to justify its unfounded claims for Artsakh, tries to impose on the
appropriate international structures its viewpoint on the priority of
the principle of territorial integrity over the people’s right to
self-determination.
In this regard, I would like to remind once again that in
the context of the NKR proclamation, it is incorrect to speak about
the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. The matter is that the
geopolitical transformations, which took place in the world at the
turn of the 1980-1990s, and first of all, the impending collapse of
the USSR created entirely new political and legal realities in the
South Caucasus region. It is clear that the collapse of the Soviet
Union was an inevitable consequence of the development of the domestic
political processes, and the once powerful Communist power was divided
into the parts, of which it had once been formed. For similar fair
reasons, the collapse of Azerbaijan also took place – a state
formation artificially created by the Bolsheviks, which was aptly
nicknamed as a by the tsarist General, Denikin. As a
result, two independent states were formed – the AzerbaijaniRepublic
and theNagornoKarabakhRepublic. Moreover, which is very important, the
process of secession of Nagorno Karabakh from Azerbaijan was legally
perfect, which, however, cannot be said about Azerbaijanwhen seceding
from the USSR. Whatever it was, but the fact is that
theAzerbaijaniSovietSocialistRepublic fell into oblivion, and now to
insist on the restoration of the territorial integrity of the
non-existent state formation seems to be nonsense.
Summarizing, we can state that the
NagornoKarabakhRepublic, which has passed all the stages of state
building, is a de facto established independent state. The process of
development of the Karabakh statehood has long become irreversible.
The NKR performs an independent foreign policy aimed at the protection
of its national interests. The main vector of the foreign policy
activity was and remains the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement
and achievement of the international recognition of the NKR
independence. It is important to note that the position of the
Republic’s leadership is based on the legally perfect procedure of the
NKR proclamation and on the peoples’ right to self-determination.
There is no doubt that the solution of the Karabakh issue on the
conditions of Azerbaijan, which, actually, insists on returning to the
realities of 1988, is unpromising and fraught with a new war.
Considering the above mentioned, the international mediators from the
OSCE should discuss today not the status of Nagorno Karabakh, which
has long been defined by its people and is not subject to revision,
but the principles and mechanisms for the establishment of interstate
relations between the NKR and Azerbaijan.
The Declaration of September 2, 1991 stated the right of the people of
Nagorno-Karabakh to independently resolve the issue of its state-legal
status, which did not absolutely run counter to international laws. 23
years have passed since that day, and time has only confirmed the
validity of this crucial political solution as the only true.
Leonid MARTIROSSIAN
Editor-in-Chief of Azat Artsakh newspaper