Peacekeepers would be only in case of final and comprehensive peace settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

By Melania Barseghyan

Since the ceasefire of 1994, both domestically and at the international levels, information is regularly are released that pretty soon peacekeeping troops would be deployed along the Karabakh-Azerbaijani borderline. Fortunately, this information so far remains at the level of rumors. Once again, these rumors began in the end of July during the tension along the borderline. After the tripartite Sochi meeting of presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, the rumors were focused on the “Russian peacekeepers”. But as many experts, war veterans, politicians, so as Armenia’s and NKR Defense Ministers were of one and the same opinion that we do not need peacekeepers.

At the press conference on August 6, Armenia’s Defense Minister, Seyran Ohanyan, said, “Among all conflict zones in the world, Karabakh is the only conflict zone where relative peace is maintained without the third-party force, through a balance of forces, and thanks to our advantage of fighting spirit and quality preparedness. We estimate the situation as a ‘no war, no peace’ state, because the ceasefire terms are constantly violated by the rival. Thanks to our officer preparedness, we preserve the situation. When we talk about the balance of forces, one can immediately conclude what quantitative and qualitative preparedness means. In that sense, we can solve the problems facing us independently, and currently, there is no need for deployment of peacekeeping forces. “

In his turn, at a press conference on August 19, in Stepanakert, NKR Defense Minister, Movses Hakobyan had said, “For us, the best peacekeeper is the troop of Defense Army, we do not feel the need for any other peacekeepers.”

Meanwhile, on August 10, at the interview to “ArmNews”, to the question of the journalist about the Russian peacekeepers, President of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, had responded as follows, “It is the first time I have hear about only the Russian peacekeepers, and, in general, the Madrid principles imply the deployment of peacekeepers along the whole length of the contact line, i.e. between the conflicting sides. But it is not the subject of these negotiations, because the mere principle itself has to be discussed, namely whether there will be peacekeepers or not. The document of Kazan envisages this provision. The composition of the peacekeeping forces, their powers will be specified in the Final Agreement that should follow the signing of the mentioned instrument.”

To the question of “Aravot” how to understand this, and whether this mean that the deployment of peacekeepers likely, political scientist Armen Minasyan replied, “Serzh Sargsyan’s clarification is not in any conflict with the stance expressed by the defense ministers of Armenia and Artsakh. As far as one can judge, both Seyran Ohanyan and Movses Hakobyan, had made a reference to the issue of peacekeepers in the context of recent escalation in the Contact line. Their stances evidently showed that the Armenian side considers its own armed forces the best guarantee for preservation of peace and security of the Artsakh people. This, naturally, is reasonable and perceivable, if we consider what failures various peacekeeping missions had in different hotbeds around the world.

With regard to the clarification by the president, then nothing new has been said. In their numerous statements, the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries (Aquila, Muskoka, Deauville, Los Cabos, etc.) have wiretapped some clauses of proposals put on the negotiation table, from which it becomes clear that one of the elements of comprehensive solution to the conflict is the implementation of the peacekeeping actions. The same statements repeatedly noted that the proposed principles and elements are a whole, therefore, one can conclude that the peacekeeping actions implies only to the comprehensive settlement, about which we can speak only in case of elaboration of the so-called “Big Peace Agreement”, the discussion of which is planned after the basic principles agreed upon. Since the parties have not reached an agreement on the principles of settlement, currently speaking about the big agreements and the settlement is too early now. In other words, it is too early to talk about the inevitability for deployment of peacekeepers.”

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