BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN
The US Co-chairman of the OSCE Minks Group James Warlick took to Twitter Thursday to praise the recent decision by the leaders of Cyprus and occupied northern Cyprus to begin negotiations. He ended his tweet by asking: “Why can’t this happen for Nagorno-#Karabakh?”
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic foreign ministry quickly replied to Warlick on Twitter with the following post: “@AmbJamesWarlick We agree that it’s high time for restoration of full-fledged negotiations with direct participation of Nagorno #Karabakh.”
Warlick, who has been very active on Twitter in recent weeks expressing his views and posting updates about meetings with Armenian and Azeri officials, had not immediately responded to clarify his earlier post.
Is the US Co-chairman saying that Karabakh needs to be a full-fledged part of the peace talks?–a point being emphasized by official Stepanakert for several years. It would be interesting to know.
Stepanakert’s participation will definitely speed up the process. It’s bizarre that the negotiations are conducted without the most important party.
I hope this is not an attempt or condition to come, for Ankara’s participation in the talk…
Ani Martirosian…This honest, brave lady spoke historical speech…She articulated the heart of every honest human who understand Armenian cause since millennium …not only the Armenians’ who lost Armenian Highlands=Western Armenia (called Eastern Turkey) after the genocide after Armenians lost 1.5 million lives … Every word she said it is true and historical… But still some Turks or Azeris think the same way to annihilate all Armenians from this earth…still they think it was not enough for what they did…
Armenians lost all their lands do any one accept to lose Artsakh as well…is this fair …many lessons from them was not enough to protect them selves…!!!
Ths is the way to go
All the CO-Chairs of OSCE MINKS GROUP agree, that is no valueble peace Process without participation of Stepanakert (Nagorno Karabakh) in any Talks or in any direct Negotiations.
Including the people who are directly involved would make the most sense. I’m not too hopeful, though; Russia will do anything to sabotage these meetings and destroy any chance at peace for Armenia and Karabagh.
Please be very careful. The comments made by Warlick could be a trap. So lets not get excited by comments like this, and instead read between the lines. Referencing the Cyprus issue and equating it with the Karabakh issue may be an attempt to say that after direct negotiations between the two parties, the best compromise solution would be unification of the two entities under one country in a sort of federal structure, with the rights of the smaller party guaranteed, but under a single country. If Warlick is serious, then he should twitt the self determination rights of Karabakh instead of referencing Cyprus issue which is totally a different case (the case of Cyprus Turks is not similar to Karabakh Armenians).
Without Artsakh, there wont be any viable negotiation. Artsakh is the key stakeholder and the main subject of the conflict. Therefore, any viable negotiation requires the direct participation of Stepanakert. I am surprised, how it is possible that Artsakh was excluded from all negotiations until now. Time has come to change course.