YEREVAN (Yerkir)—In opposition to the recent statement by the presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries—the US, France and Russia—the Armenian Revolutionary Federation “Nigol Aghbalian” Youth Organization protested at the OSCE headquarters and submitted a protest letter.
“We, unequivocally, will continue to pursue our demands, we will organize protests, publish open letters and announcements and next time we will engage the entire spectrum of activist Armenian youth in protests and demonstrations,” said ARF Youth Central Executive member Artur Ghazaryan.
“We hope that our protest actions will assist entities engaged in the Karabakh peace process to be more careful in their statements and assessments,” added Ghazaryan.
President Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev last week issued a joint statement urging the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to speed up the peace process and urged Armenia to “withdraw from occupied territories.”
The latter demand is seen by many, including the ARF Youth protesters as cornering Armenia into concessions and ignores repeated demands to include Karabakh in the peace negotiations.
The key point of contentions for the protesters is the leaders’ unwillingness to condemn Azerbaijan for the June 18 violation of the cease fire, as a result of which four Armenian soldiers were killed after Azeri forces attacked Armenian positions in Mardakert.
“Since 1994, Azerbaijan, on several occasions, has violated the cease fire, for which it has never been called to accountability. With all due respect to the OSCE Minks Group co-chair countries, we would like to establish that those countries that are not actively taking steps to curtail Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian and aggressive policies are equally guilty in perpetuating Azerbaijan efforts that go against peace and the negotiation processes. Hence, the US, France and Russia, which are advocates of peace, must revisit their posturing and not allow Azerbaijan’s violence and intimidation to go unanswered,” said the statement submitted to the OSCE office.
Ghazaryan was invited inside the OSCE headquarters in Yerevan, where he presented the protest letter. An OSCE representative, Gzhegozh Mikhlaski, assured the protesters that their letter will be sent to the proper entities in the Vienna Central office.
”that their letter will be sent to the proper entities in the Vienna Central office”… We’ll see if they do that, or if they throw it away… Because since i seen the ”Tale of Bryza”, you can expect that Elmar Mammadyarov (AZ Foreign M.) could take the phone, and begin to pressing Mikhlaski to ”forget the incident”. ”Aliyevstan” govt is not too different that the old KGB.
Authorities are fooling the nation: Ruling regime as well the authorities in NKR have fallen already in a trap. This is both are ignoring the fact that “expression of will” is done by the people of Karabakh in 1992 as it was the case with the soviet Republic of Azerbaijan.
RA authorities should better first think than speak. Azerbaijani propaganda machinery in well organized cooperation with foreign lobbyists and Turkish government is preparing Armenian people “gradually/step by step ” to accept that the NKR is “occupied territory” too and should be returnd…… ! Even if the statement of the three president would say: “return of “occupies Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijani jurisdiction” and determination of the status by expression of will”,- the ruling regime would welcome the statement and call for a celebration- In reality the statement of G8 wish to have the status quo of 1988!!