LEGISLATIVE BLIND ALLEY

The leaders of the Armenian expansionists love to make "discoveries" in international law and to invent different terms to disguise the fact that claims on the territory of a neighbouring state are a priori illegal, however beautifully they may be dressed. It is, therefore, not surprising that the speaker of the Armenian parliament, Tigran Torosyan, reacted so sensitively to my article "Who is to blame for the Karabakh stalemate?" published in the journal Russia in Global Affairs (No 1, 2008). Commenting at the request of a Day.az correspondent on the latest UN General Assembly resolution on Nagornyy Karabakh, Mr Torosyan considered it his duty to dwell on the article with enviable determination and again tried to prove that demands for the separation of Karabakh from Azerbaijan by force could be legitimate. Understanding all too well that international law does not give the slightest chance to any such attempts, the Armenian parliamentary speaker continues to confuse his public.

When in February 1988 the activists of the Karabakh movement were forestalled by the fact that the Soviet Constitution directly forbade changes in the territory of the union republics without their consent and made no reference whatsoever to "self determination up to and including secession", they dreamt up the melodious term "legislative blind alley". When the USSR collapsed, and its constituent union republics were recognized as independent states by the international community, it was clear that the demands of the "Karabakh movement" contradicted international law. And the cornerstone of international law is the principle of respect for the territorial integrity of states, and the self-determination of peoples can occur only within the framework of this territorial integrity. Basically, not one piece of legislation or one single mechanism exists in the world today that would bestow at least some legality on Armenia's actions against Azerbaijan and its constituent territory of Nagornyy Karabakh. 

There is a political aphorism born of painful experience that is attributed to different US presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt: "You can deceive some of the people some of the time, but you cannot deceive all of the people all of the time." Armenia seems to be trying its utmost to extend this "some of the time", continuing assiduously and, more important, deliberately, to misinform and deceive its own citizens. And they continue to trust their own leaders, thinking they are well informed and educated.

Looking in official historical documents for something that isn't really there, or to be more accurate for something that isn't there at all, has long been a distinguishing characteristic of Armenian politicians. For example, Armenian circles claim that in planning the genocide of the Jews, Hitler said, "Who remembers the suffering of the Armenians?" and confirmation of this can be found in the records of the Nuremberg trials, while in fact it was proved during the Nuremberg tribunal that the version of Hitler's speech in Obersalzberg, presented by American journalist Louis Lochner, which referred to the planned destruction of the Poles, and not the Jews, and allegedly mentions the Armenians, cannot be considered a reliable document. For this reason two other versions of this speech were taken as evidence, where there is no mention of Armenians. Or they try to make out that "the arbitrating decision of Woodrow Wilson" on the Armenian-Turkish border, which does not coincide with the modern-day borders of the two states, remains as before an active document for American diplomacy or that the Treaty of Sevres can somehow be revived and the treaties of Kars and Moscow revisited.

Until recently the record in this regard was held by Hamlet Gasparyan, who has been head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry press service since 2004. He poured a torrent of destructive criticism on the British ambassador to Armenia, Thorda Abbott-Watt, for her refusal to submit to the demands of Armenian diplomats and describe the events of 1915 as "genocide", which was the position of her country. In response the Foreign Ministry press secretary advised the ambassador to remember what a sensitive issue this is for Armenia. In other words Yerevan did not want British diplomats to inform the public at large about London's actual position on this question.

It is harder to commit a greater crime against one's people than deliberately to misinform them on key political issues.

Tigran Torosyan, the recently appointed speaker of the Armenian parliament, is today engaged in deliberate misinformation. In his interview with Day.az he cited the fourth principle of the Helsinki Final Act, which is lethal for Armenian diplomacy: "The participating States will respect the territorial integrity of each of the participating States. Accordingly, they will refrain from any action inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations against the territorial integrity, political independence or the unity of any participating State, and in particular from any such action constituting a threat or use of force. The participating States will likewise refrain from making each other's territory the object of military occupation or other direct or indirect measures of force in contravention of international law, or the object of acquisition by means of such measures or the threat of them. No such occupation or acquisition will be recognized as legal." Moreover, he tried to insist that this can be applied to anyone, only not to the Karabakh adventurers: "Have you noticed that this principle applies in relations between the participating states (for example, Armenia and Azerbaijan) while the law [principle] of self-determination applies in relations between Azerbaijan and Nagornyy Karabakh," Mr Torosyan said.  And Yerevan can step up its attempts to present the affair as though Armenia has nothing to do with it and it is all a matter of self-determination, but they are unlikely to have the required effect on the world community: at the end of the day, the sides to the conflict are recognized as Armenia and Azerbaijan and not Azerbaijan and Nagornyy Karabakh and this point alone is enough to understand that the fourth principle of the Helsinki Final Act directly applies to the actions of Armenia. And any neutral researcher "will notice" here a final verdict on those who started the Karabakh adventure and even an electronic microscope will not find anything that will allow the thesis of self-determination to be applied to Nagornyy Karabakh, which was wrested from Azerbaijan with the help of foreign forces.

Torosyan, however, is continuing to pursue his line and says: "Recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is not unnatural and does not concern Nagornyy Karabakh. This is what the co-chairmen of the Minsk Group have said and what is written in the second point of PACE Resolution No 1416." If Torosyan is to be believed, "although some Azerbaijani politicians like to cite this document, they fail to 'notice' that this point talks in black and white not only about the possibility but also about the mechanism of secession".

This is a reference to the second point of Resolution 1416, which deserves to be quoted here in full: "The Assembly expresses its concern that the military action, and the widespread ethnic hostilities which preceded it, led to large-scale ethnic expulsion and the creation of mono-ethnic areas which resemble the terrible concept of ethnic cleansing. The Assembly reaffirms that independence and secession of a regional territory from a state may only be achieved through a lawful and peaceful process based on the democratic support of the inhabitants of such territory and not in the wake of an armed conflict leading to ethnic expulsion and the de facto annexation of such territory to another state. The Assembly reiterates that the occupation of foreign territory by a member state constitutes a grave violation of that state's obligations as a member of the Council of Europe and reaffirms the right of displaced persons from the area of conflict to return to their homes safely and with dignity." According to Torosyan, this is not a categorical condemnation of Armenia for ethnic cleansing and occupation, nor a reminder that it is unacceptable to change the borders of other states in this way, but "a prescribed mechanism of secession".

One might of course say that too much should not be asked of Tigran Torosyan. Although he is the speaker of parliament, he is not a law specialist: he graduated from the Yerevan Polytechnic with a doctorate in technical sciences, then entered politics. He is scarcely someone to whom the law does not apply. One does not need a doctorate in law in order to understand the Helsinki Final Act and the PACE resolution - a course in basic law for non-law students would suffice. And, as the speaker of parliament, Torosyan must be aware that he is trying to read into international documents something that is not in fact written there.

Such "juridical mystery" could be forgiven the leader of a marginal party or the manager of the sadly notorious Yerevan Poplavok restaurant. But Torosyan is the speaker of parliament, a highly influential politician, which already makes him more responsible for his words. Moreover, he cannot fail to understand that in continuing to insist that the Karabakh demands can be made legitimate, he is driving the country further and further up a political and legislative blind alley, which, alas, has only one way out: to give up claims on others' territory and learn to live in peace with one's neighbours. 

However, Torosyan may well be acting for personal, career reasons. In 2004 when PACE passed resolution 1416 Torosyan headed the Armenian delegation there. And realizing that they simply would not forgive him at home in Yerevan for the Armenian delegation's failure to prevent the adoption of the resolution, he began to say that this second point is exceptionally favourable to Armenia and even spun a political yarn that the Armenian delegation deliberately did not draw attention to it, so that the malicious Azerbaijanis would not understand how favourable this was to Yerevan and only now is he revealing his secret. In the same way he is practically ready to hang, draw and quarter Vardan Oskanyan for the UN General Assembly passing the resolution on the situation of occupied Azerbaijani land. It would be funny if it were not so sad. Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan has already stepped on the Karabakh mine and been blown up and new Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan was forced to part with him as foreign minister. This is nothing compared to the fact that the people are beginning to understand that neither Kocharyan, nor Oskanyan, nor Torosyan, nor Sargsyan nor anyone else can legitimize claims on the territory of a neighbouring state. 

Clearly, such a yarn could convince some unworldly individuals, but, as the latest tragic events in Yerevan have shown, the citizens of Armenia are beginning to ask more and more questions: why is the country losing chances to take part in cross-border and transcontinental projects, why is it being left out of regional cooperation, bearing huge economic losses, what did Armenian conscripts die for in Karabakh? It is also worth asking the Armenian leadership where Armenians have a better life today - in the territory of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, in Armenia, or in France and California? And how long will they have to exist in such conditions if for 20 years Yerevan has been unable to legitimize the annexation of Azerbaijani land and has no prospect of doing so? 

Clearly, if the Armenian voters and the Armenian people now realize that there simply are no ways to legitimize "territorial gains", this will mean political suicide for the current Armenian elite who came to power on a wave of Karabakh slogans: the elite will simply be overturned by popular anger. And now figures such as Torosyan are continuing to misinform their own people, to call black white and white black, and to describe serious defeats for Armenian diplomacy as victories in order to live to fight another day. Not so long ago Saddam Hussein was doing something similar, insisting that he had defeated the whole world during Desert Storm. And everyone knows how his attempt to deceive all of the people all of the time ended.