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WAR OF WORDS: EMBITTERED RHETORIC IN AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA REVEALS FAILURE OF PEACE TALKS
Naira Hayrumyan
ArmeniaNow
29.07.11
The bitter political rhetoric between Armenia and Azerbaijan (and
Turkey) at the level of heads of state has sharply intensified lately,
with acute political claims and even insults uttered. This suggests
that another round of negotiations on the Karabakh conflict and the
normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations have proved a fiasco.
Two weeks have passed since Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov conveyed to his Russian counterpart the answer of President
Ilham Aliyev on President Dmitry Medvedev's latest proposal on the
Karabakh settlement. Last week it was reported that Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan had also responded to the Kremlin proposal.
However, it is still not known whether the presidents agreed to accept
the proposals and what the proposals are all about.
The absence of any assessment and enthusiasm in public statements
of the South Caucasus leaders shows that the Medvedev proposals must
have been rejected. And although unofficially there is a talk about a
forthcoming tripartite meeting in Sochi, the tougher rhetoric of the
rival nations' presidents leaves no hope for agreement to be reached
between them.
This was indirectly confirmed by Sargsyan, who during a joint press
conference with the visiting Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski,
in Yerevan on Thursday, in fact, acknowledged the failure of the Kazan
meeting in late June, stressing that it was the fault of Azerbaijan.
"I wouldn't call the Kazan meeting a fiasco, even though, as I said,
both we and the international community had a lot of expectations
from that meeting. It's just that what happened should have happened,
something I talked about at the Council of Europe Parliamentary
Assembly. First of all, I mean the absence of an appropriate
atmosphere. And that atmosphere should be improved in the first
instance -- you cannot poison your own people every day and do it at
every level," said Sargsyan, referring to the Azerbaijani leadership's
anti-Armenian rhetoric.
"I don't know if you, for example, followed international news
yesterday and if you know what statements were made by the president
of Azerbaijan regarding the Armenian people? Is this a statement
of a normal person, let alone a country's leader? The demand of
the Karabakh Armenians and the Armenian people in general is one:
the problem must be resolved in accordance with international law
and principles of this law set forth in a document called the 'Madrid
principles' that were proposed to the parties by the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairing states - the United States, France and Russia. We have no
other demands. That is, our demands are consonant with the requirements
of the international community," stated the Armenian leader.
In his remarks, Sargsyan also pointed out Karabakh's higher democratic
standard as compared with Azerbaijan.
"Elections take place in Nagorno-Karabakh and these elections are held
in accordance with international standards, and this is what they
[Karabakhis] and we are proud of. Three presidential elections have
taken place in Nagorno-Karabakh, presidents were elected three times
and none of them inherited power," said Sargsyan in a clear jab at
Ilham Aliyev's getting into office after his father Heydar Aliyev's
death in 2003.
At a meeting with some Diaspora students last weekend Sargsyan implied
that it was up to the younger generation of Armenians to pursue the
claims over historically Armenian lands that are part of modern-day
Turkey.
The statement sparked a barrage of criticism and indignant statements
in Turkey and its regional ethnic cousin Azerbaijan. At a joint press
conference with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
in Baku earlier this week, President Aliyev said: "The Armenians
believe that they have solved the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. They are
wrong. Nagorno-Karabakh was and still is an Azeri land. Time will come
when Azerbaijan, peacefully or militarily, will restore its sovereignty
over Nagorno-Karabakh. But making territorial claims to such a great
country as Turkey?! It simply indicates that something is missing in
the minds of these people. They need to wake up from their sleep,
get back to the real world and at least compare themselves with
Turkey. You cannot compare an elephant and an ant."
This increasingly bitter rhetoric against the backdrop of a growing
likelihood of early elections in Armenia may indicate that the Karabakh
conflict settlement has been suspended indefinitely.
Naira Hayrumyan
ArmeniaNow
29.07.11
The bitter political rhetoric between Armenia and Azerbaijan (and
Turkey) at the level of heads of state has sharply intensified lately,
with acute political claims and even insults uttered. This suggests
that another round of negotiations on the Karabakh conflict and the
normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations have proved a fiasco.
Two weeks have passed since Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov conveyed to his Russian counterpart the answer of President
Ilham Aliyev on President Dmitry Medvedev's latest proposal on the
Karabakh settlement. Last week it was reported that Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan had also responded to the Kremlin proposal.
However, it is still not known whether the presidents agreed to accept
the proposals and what the proposals are all about.
The absence of any assessment and enthusiasm in public statements
of the South Caucasus leaders shows that the Medvedev proposals must
have been rejected. And although unofficially there is a talk about a
forthcoming tripartite meeting in Sochi, the tougher rhetoric of the
rival nations' presidents leaves no hope for agreement to be reached
between them.
This was indirectly confirmed by Sargsyan, who during a joint press
conference with the visiting Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski,
in Yerevan on Thursday, in fact, acknowledged the failure of the Kazan
meeting in late June, stressing that it was the fault of Azerbaijan.
"I wouldn't call the Kazan meeting a fiasco, even though, as I said,
both we and the international community had a lot of expectations
from that meeting. It's just that what happened should have happened,
something I talked about at the Council of Europe Parliamentary
Assembly. First of all, I mean the absence of an appropriate
atmosphere. And that atmosphere should be improved in the first
instance -- you cannot poison your own people every day and do it at
every level," said Sargsyan, referring to the Azerbaijani leadership's
anti-Armenian rhetoric.
"I don't know if you, for example, followed international news
yesterday and if you know what statements were made by the president
of Azerbaijan regarding the Armenian people? Is this a statement
of a normal person, let alone a country's leader? The demand of
the Karabakh Armenians and the Armenian people in general is one:
the problem must be resolved in accordance with international law
and principles of this law set forth in a document called the 'Madrid
principles' that were proposed to the parties by the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairing states - the United States, France and Russia. We have no
other demands. That is, our demands are consonant with the requirements
of the international community," stated the Armenian leader.
In his remarks, Sargsyan also pointed out Karabakh's higher democratic
standard as compared with Azerbaijan.
"Elections take place in Nagorno-Karabakh and these elections are held
in accordance with international standards, and this is what they
[Karabakhis] and we are proud of. Three presidential elections have
taken place in Nagorno-Karabakh, presidents were elected three times
and none of them inherited power," said Sargsyan in a clear jab at
Ilham Aliyev's getting into office after his father Heydar Aliyev's
death in 2003.
At a meeting with some Diaspora students last weekend Sargsyan implied
that it was up to the younger generation of Armenians to pursue the
claims over historically Armenian lands that are part of modern-day
Turkey.
The statement sparked a barrage of criticism and indignant statements
in Turkey and its regional ethnic cousin Azerbaijan. At a joint press
conference with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
in Baku earlier this week, President Aliyev said: "The Armenians
believe that they have solved the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. They are
wrong. Nagorno-Karabakh was and still is an Azeri land. Time will come
when Azerbaijan, peacefully or militarily, will restore its sovereignty
over Nagorno-Karabakh. But making territorial claims to such a great
country as Turkey?! It simply indicates that something is missing in
the minds of these people. They need to wake up from their sleep,
get back to the real world and at least compare themselves with
Turkey. You cannot compare an elephant and an ant."
This increasingly bitter rhetoric against the backdrop of a growing
likelihood of early elections in Armenia may indicate that the Karabakh
conflict settlement has been suspended indefinitely.