Note – This article was published in The Valley of Death by Tatul Hakobyan. The article was first published in 2016.
After the 4-day war of April 2016, which cost around 100 Armenian lives and 800 hectares of land, members of the ruling party in Armenia began to openly talk about possible territorial concessions in Artsakh. The first high level official who publicly touched upon these issues, was the deputy speaker of Parliament, head of Armenia’s delegation to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Hermine Naghdalyan.
“Our compromise is not about 5 occupied territories. We view this process as part of a more complex agreement within the framework of Madrid principles. It should be clear that we, the Armenians, are not fighting for your lands but for our peaceful sovereign country. That is why we agree, that when there is a final decision about Nagorno Karabakh and the world recognizes the independence of Artsakh, we will discuss territorial issues. We have no intention in keeping those lands, we view these territories as a buffer zone, which we need for security reasons only”, Naghdalyan said.
In June 2016, Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan reiterated this point in Poland – “Status quo will change, if/when the right for self-determination of the people of Nagorno Karabakh is recognized”.
Another member of the ruling Republican party Lernik Alexanyan also announced in July that there can be territorial concessions, which will not endanger Nagorno Karabakh’s security and will result in the recognition of Artsakh. “Imagine if we return Agdam and have Karabakh recognized instead, who would be against it?”, announced Serzh Sargsyan’s teammate.
An organization called IPSC conducted a sociological survey in Artsakh about possible return of territories to Azerbaijan. European friends of Armenia the organization which ordered this survey, is closely linked to Serzh Sargsyan’s son-in-law Mikayel Minasyan. Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin Russian media outlets began to discuss possible developments in Artsakh. In particular, the analysis about returning adjacent territories around Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan, except for Lachin and possibly one more region came up in Russian media.
Discussions about possible return of territories does not come as a surprise at least to me. Throughout Nagorno Karabakh negotiation’s history, territorial concessions from the Armenian parties had always been on the agenda. To be more precise, return of territories is one of the four principles of negotiations. The other three principles are the following 1. The status of Nagorno Karabakh, including a corridor connecting Armenia with Nagorno Karabakh; 2. Issues of refugees; 3. Future security issues of Artsakh.
There is no secret here. If we read OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs’ offer of 1997 about package deal and the step-by-step solution, as well as the idea of common state suggested as an option for Nagorno Karabakh conflict resolution in 1998, we will see that both Yerevan and Stepanakert have been negotiating possible territorial concessions for a long time. In all above-mentioned cases the Armenian sides to the conflict showed readiness to return at least 6 territories around Nagorno Karabakh, with the exception of Lachin.
Later on, when the so-called Madrid principles appeared, as well as the document negotiated in Key West, territorial returns by the Armenian parties were present again. In 2011, yet another document was introduced to the parties in Kazan. This document also indicated that at least 5 territories will be returned to Azerbaijan. Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan announced that he was ready to sign the Kazan document, however, his Azerbaijani counterpart refused to do it.
All three presidents of Armenia, have spoken about territorial returns at different occasions. The first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan spoke about it during his famous press conference on September 26 of 1997. He further discussed this issue in great detail in his article called “War or Peace? It is time to get serious”.
In September 2006, while in office, Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan said the following to Al Jazeera. “There are territories outside of Karabakh, which are occupied by Armenians. We have repeatedly said, that except for the narrow corridor of Lachin, we are ready to discuss possible territorial returns to Azerbaijan”.
And finally, in 2010, the third president Serzh Sargsyan spoke about territories in his interview to Syrian newspaper Al-Watan. “When the people of Karabakh receive a real chance for self-determination and proper security mechanisms for the future development of Artsakh are in place, we can discuss the return of territories around Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan, of course maintaining a corridor connecting Armenia with Karabakh. I have said these many times before”.
Moreover, in 2001 at his capacity of Armenia’s defense minister Serzh Sargsyan made a clear statement in Armenia’s parliament. “I cannot accept our public’s belief that we have liberated of Agdam. We need to take our opponent’s opinion seriously. Yes, there have been territories which we conquered, and we should never be ashamed of this fact. We took over those territories to maintain the security of our homeland. We have openly announced about this back in 1992, in 1994 and I am reaffirming this approach now. This statement may be considered as an undiplomatic one, but it is what it is. We cannot approach this issue from one perspective only and say that Agdam is ours, Mirbashir is Armenian”.
However, the rhetoric seems to be changing. If 2 or 3 months ago, different circles and speakers of the ruling Republican party were openly discussing possible territorial concessions to Azerbaijan, they seem to be adopting a more maximalist approach now. We hear about not surrendering anything, which sounds like a great wish, but in that case our public has the right to know, what their government is negotiating with Azerbaijan with Putin’s mediation. It would also be interesting to know how this administration is making fools out of Ilham Aliyev and their beloved Vladimir Putin.
And last, but not least. I hope that this regime will not be forced to sign an overnight agreement and later justify its decision by saying that it did not have enough time to inform our public about it.
August 22, 2016
