Baku’s ‘Inter-community’ Format in Resolving Karabakh Conflict is Unacceptable: NKR Authorities

Again, the Azerbaijani authorities actively impress the notion of “inter-community” aimed at distorting the essence of the Karabakh issue and transforming the actual trilateral format of the conflict into a bilateral one favorable for Baku, reads a press statement issued by the de-facto Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The rest of the statement reads as follows:

“The Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict is the consequence of Baku’s inability to display civilized approaches to the solution of the issue, which occurred as a result of the natural process of disintegration during the USSR collapse. The Nagorno Karabakh Republic, which had been established in full accordance with the then legislation and all the international norms, became an object of Azerbaijan’s full-scale aggression aimed at physical extermination of the NKR citizens. Having lost the war, which it had unleashed, Baku, unfortunately, became more sophisticated in its intrigues and provocations in the political sphere. The attempts to introduce the Karabakh conflict as ‘inter-community’ are Baku’s propaganda trick, trying to distract the international community from the real essence of the issue.

“The inter-community format pursues far-reaching goals, in particular, unilateral return of Azerbaijani refugees to Nagorno Karabakh without resolving the issue of the 500,000 Armenians deported from Azerbaijan; turning the issue of former ‘colony’ and former ‘metropolis’ into inter-ethnic problems of the region’s inhabitants, while it is a consequence of the general discrimination policy of the Azerbaijani authorities towards the Karabakh Armenians; ignoring the factor of Nagorno Karabakh Republic being an entity, and introducing the established Karabakh state as a region in Azerbaijan’s structure with equal rights of two communities. On Baku’s consideration, all the abovementioned should ultimately become the basis for the issue’s solution in the radically nonviable format of ‘self-determination of Nagorno Karabakh within Azerbaijan’.

“The Karabakh party considers the ‘inter-community’ approach not only as not having perspective, but also extremely dangerous, as it leads the peacemaking process to a deadlock and discredits the very idea of peacemaking, causing additional tension and non-confidence between the societies of the conflicting parties.

“The attempt of artificial granting of this status to the Azerbaijani minority has no legal basis; it contradicts, in particular, the OSCE Budapest Summit resolution (1994) on the recognition of Nagorno Karabakh as an independent party to the conflict, without noting the ‘communities’. The right of the Nagorno Karabakh population to self-determination didn’t depend on the existence of consensus between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The former citizens of Nagorno Karabakh of Azerbaijani origin, to whom the Karabakh authorities gave the chance of participating in the voting and resolving the future fate of the region, preferred leaving Karabakh and becoming citizens of the newly proclaimed Azerbaijani Republic.

“A constructive dialogue between the NKR citizens and former Azerbaijani citizens of Nagorno Karabakh is possible only after the legal recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Only direct negotiations between the political leadership of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan can give specific results on the comprehensive settlement of the issue and establishment of long-term peace in the region.”