Compromise and Realism only Options for Karabakh Settlement

One cannot blame Armenia for thinking that Azerbaijan is not ready or interested in a negotiated peace, Armenian FM Vartan Oskanian stated at the 61st session of the UN GA, reports the Press Office of the MFA of Armenia. “Yet, having rejected the other two compromise solutions that have been proposed over the last 8 years, they do not want to be accused of rejecting the peace plan on the table today. Therefore, they are using every means available – from state violence to international maneuvers – to try to bring the Armenians to do the rejecting. But Armenia is on record: we have agreed to each of the basic principles in the document that’s on the table today. Yet, in order to give this or any document a chance, Azerbaijan can’t think, or pretend to think, that there is still a military option. There isn’t. The military option is a tried and failed option. Compromise and realism are the only real options. The path that Nagorno Karabakh has chosen for itself over these two decades is irreversible. Karabakh succeeded in ensuring its self-defense, it proceeded to set up self-governance mechanisms, and it controls its borders and its economy. Formalizing this process is a necessary step toward stability in our region. Dismissing, as Azerbaijan does, all that has happened in the last 20 years and petulantly insisting that things must return to the way they were, is not just unrealistic, but disingenuous. Nagorno Karabakh is not a cause. It is a place, an ancient place, a beautiful garden, with people who have earned the right to live in peace and without fear. We ask for nothing more. We expect nothing less,” Oskanian summed up.