From: EurasiaDigest (digest@eurasianet.org)
Date: Thu Oct 04 2007 - 10:39:36 EDT
ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS UN SHOULD NOT ENGAGE IN KARABAKH MEDIATION
Addressing the UN General Assembly on October 3 for the 10th consecutive year, Vartan Oskanian again deplored the inclusion in the assembly's agenda of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, according to the text of his address as circulated by the Armenian Foreign Ministry on October 4. The initiative for debating the Karabakh conflict at the General Assembly, together with those in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniester, originated with the GUAM group (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova); EU envoy to the South Caucasus Peter Semneby and the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group that is mediating a settlement of the Karabakh conflict have both criticized it as unhelpful and counterproductive (see "RFE/RL Newsline," September 18 and December 7, 2006, and February 20 and March 5, 2007). Oskanian argued that "any resolution that places all conflicts in one pot is necessarily flawed. Each of these conflicts is different." He pointed out that, unlike the other three, the Karabakh conflict is not "frozen," but "we are
inching toward resolution" on the basis of "a well-developed negotiating document...based not on wishful thinking, but on the core issue and the consequential issues," which "together, add up to a balanced solution." Oskanian stressed that Armenia concurs with the international community's argument that eventual independence for Kosova cannot and should not serve as a precedent to be applied to other conflicts. But he went on to argue that, by the same token, Armenia will not accept "the reverse logic -- that if Kosovo is given independence, no other people can achieve self-determination." LF
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