Trend Daily News (Azerbaijan)
June 2, 2011 Thursday 1:43 PM GMT +4
Azerbaijani Presidential Administration official: Baku bitterly
disappointed by int’l mediation efforts
Azerbaijan, Baku, June 2 / Trend /
The Head of the Department on Social and Political Issues of the
Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, Ali Hasanov, gave an
interview to The New York Times. Hasanov spoke about the current
situation around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.
“There is no guarantee that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow a war
between Azerbaijan and Armenia won’t start,” Hasanov said. “It’s
peaceful coexistence that we need, not a war. We need peaceful
development. But nothing will replace territorial integrity and the
sovereignty of Azerbaijan. If necessary we are ready to give our lives
for territorial integrity.”
He said that Baku had been bitterly disappointed by international
mediation efforts. “The United States, France and Russia do not do
what they promised,” he said. “America now thinks Afghanistan and Iraq
are more important – and North Africa, and the missile defense shield
in Europe – than such regional conflicts as Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The New York Times article, which presented objective information
about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has caused a resonance among the
Armenian nationalists, who immediately began accusing of biliousness
and of every mortal sin.
“Since the early 1990s, Azerbaijan has been trying to regain control
of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave within
its borders, and secure the return of ethnic Azeris who were forced
from their homes by war. A cease-fire has held since 1994, and
officials remain engaged in internationally mediated negotiations with
Armenia,” the article reads.
“But the window for a breakthrough is narrow, and people here say
their patience is gone,” The New York Times writes. “One of the
reasons Nagorno-Karabakh has not is that neither party has an
incentive to fight.”
“Armenia controls the territories, so it is interested in maintaining
the status quo,” the article reads. “Azerbaijan sees little way
forward: though it could easily drive out Armenian forces, Russia
could send its army to help Armenia, its ally in a regional defense
alliance, just as it did in South Ossetia.”
But conditions have been shifting, slowly but surely, in a dangerous
direction, the article stressed.
“Negotiations mediated by the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe faltered last year, leaving a “basic principles
agreement” that was five years in the making unsigned by either side,”
The New York Times said. “Both countries are engaged in a steep
military buildup; Azerbaijan, by far the richer of the two, has
increased defense spending twentyfold since 2003, according to the
International Crisis Group. With frustration building, threats of war
have become so entwined with negotiations that it is difficult to say
where one begins and the other ends.”