IMPROPER INTERFERENCE

A discussion of the report "Escalation of violence in Nagornyy Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan", prepared by British MP Robert Walter, was held at the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg on 26 January. After a heated debate, the proposed draft resolution was rejected. Seventy MPs voted "against", 66 were "in favour" and 45 abstained. At first glance, such an outcome is our failure, and the Armenians have a reason to celebrate. However, having dealt with this item on the agenda, the PACE immediately proceeded to discuss the report "Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water", presented by MP Milica Markovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The resolution on this issue was adopted by a majority of 98 votes, 71 MPs were "against", and 40 abstained. Along with the delegates from Azerbaijan and Turkey, the resolution was supported by many MPs from Spain, France, Greece, Serbia, Belgium and others, i.e., by representatives of even those countries which the Armenians have traditionally considered to be their allies. It should be noted that the delegations of Ukraine and Georgia voted in favour of both resolutions in full strength, whereas of the three deputies from Moldova, which is a GUAM member suffering from aggressive separatism, only one MP showed solidarity with Azerbaijan, while the other two chose to abstain.

The Armenian delegation to the PACE sprang to announce their success, hailing the rejection - albeit by a narrow margin of four votes - of the resolution on Robert Walter's report "Escalation of violence in Nagornyy Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan". To this end, the Armenians mobilized all lobbyists and the diaspora. Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Diaspora of Armenia, deputy speakers and members of parliament of that country did a lot of travelling to meet with PACE delegates in person as well as called them by phone. However, all this could hardly have helped them, but for the support of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group mediating in the Karabakh settlement. In their joint statement, James Warlick of the USA, Igor Popov of Russia and Pierre Andrieu of France urged the PACE "...not to take steps which could undermine the Minsk Group's mandate from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe or complicate ongoing negotiations", reminding that "...the Minsk Group remains the only accepted format for the talks".

By making this statement, the Minsk Group co-chairs completely exposed themselves and showed that they are not objective and impartial mediators and actually act as lawyers for the Armenian, seeking to compel Azerbaijan to unacceptable concessions or, contrary to four UN Security Council resolutions, to preserve the status quo. It is appropriate to recall in this context that in voting on UN General Assembly Resolution A/62/L.42 "The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan" in 2008, Azerbaijan was supported by 39 countries, with 100 abstentions and only seven countries including the US, France and Russia voting against, together with Armenia. As can be seen, the co-chair countries of the Minsk Group lacked diplomatic tact at least to abstain at that time, too.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry press secretary advised the Minsk Group co-chairs about the inappropriateness and unacceptability of their statements to the PACE. But this is not enough. I think it is high time to begin analyzing to what extent the preservation of the existing format of OSCE Minsk Group chairmanship promotes the real settlement of the Karabakh conflict and the interests of Azerbaijan. In the case of a negative conclusion, it is in order to raise with the OSCE Chairman - in 2016, Germany, a co-chair of the Minsk Group - the issue of the convening of the Minsk Conference to discuss the effectiveness of the intermediaries, the desirability of changing the existing format of the co-chairmanship, as well as the development of common approaches to key factors hindering the progress of a real settlement process.

As for boastful statements of Armenian delegates and analysts about an even score of 1:1 in PACE, it is nothing more than putting a good face on the matter. Though the Azerbaijani delegation was able to pass only one resolution instead of two, it contains a fairly strong language against the Armenians.

To see this, suffice it to read the text of the Resolution "Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water", the mere title of which overtly accuses the Armenians of inhumane actions. The PACE called on the Armenian authorities (namely Yerevan, not a puppet separatist regime of Nagornyy Karabakh) to stop using water resources "as a tool for political pressure". Attention is drawn to the alarming fact: due to lack of regular technical maintenance of the dam for more than 20 years, the situation with the Sarsang reservoir "poses a danger to the whole border region" and could result in a "major disaster with great loss of human lives". The PACE requested the immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces, thus allowing access by engineers and hydrologists to carry out a detailed survey. The resolution states the need for international supervision of the state of the Sarsang and Madagiz dams and the schedule of water releases during the autumn-winter period.

Some of our analysts speculate that perhaps we should not have brought forward two PACE resolutions at the same time and limited ourselves to only one document on Sarsang reservoir, saying that the PACE had already taken the relevant resolutions on the issue of the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani territories.

Indeed, in 2005, the PACE adopted Resolution 1416 "The conflict over the Nagornyy Karabakh region dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference". Its very title gives it away as a compromise and a desire to shun the direct and clear wording that leaves no room for ambiguity as to which side is the occupier and which is the victim of aggression.

PACE Resolution 1614 of 24 June 2008 "The functioning of democratic institutions in Azerbaijan" calls Armenia "occupier" and demands "immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied territories". Moreover, the resolution stresses: "The Assembly considers that sustainable democratic development will be extremely difficult in Azerbaijan as long as the country's territorial integrity has not been restored". Reference is made to the UN General Assembly's Resolution "On the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan" adopted earlier.

In autumn 2011, the PACE adopted Resolution 1832 "National sovereignty and statehood in contemporary international law". Pursuant to the resolution, the Assembly invites all member states to refrain from recognizing or supporting in any way the de facto authorities of territories resulting from unlawful secessions, in particular those supported by foreign military interventions.

However, none of these resolutions fully met the expectations of Azerbaijan, and in this sense the initiation by Robert Walter of the Resolution "Escalation of violence in Nagornyy Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan" was appropriate and timely. The discussion of this issue at the PACE session was a form of diplomatic pressure on Armenia and drew the attention of delegates and the European public to the fact that the conflict remains unresolved for many years amidst continued unlawful occupation of our territories by Armenian armed forces despite the United Nations' Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. The sponsoring of this resolution yielded at least tactical benefits, since it diverted all forces of Armenians to neutralize its effects and indirectly helped to promote our second resolution on Sarsang reservoir.

The Azerbaijani delegation is not going to lower its activity in the PACE. The PACE Secretariat has already registered a draft resolution signed by 46 MPs from 24 countries, which is more than enough under the current rules and procedures, guaranteeing the right to a fair trial of Dilqam Asqarov and Sahbaz Quliyev, who were illegally captured by the Armenians in occupied Kalbacar in June 2014.

Whatever abstract "confidence-building measures" and mechanisms of investigating incidents on the line of contact are expatiated on by the intermediaries, it should be clear that the real progress towards peace will begin with the withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. As long as this does not happen, we shall increase the military, diplomatic, economic, transport and information pressure on Armenia and no benevolent appeals will break the strong will of the Azerbaijani people, expressed by President Ilham Aliyev, to unconditionally restore the territorial integrity of our state at any cost.