Six points about nothing - Levon  Zurabyan

ArmInfo.Levon  Zurabyan, Vice-Chairman of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), has commented on the six points proposed by the Armenian side for normalizing the  Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.  

"The six points are about nothing," Mr Zurabyan wrote on his Facebook  page. 

"We have once more been convinced that Armenia's government does not  understand anything in diplomacy and is incapable in the true sense  of the word. The point is that Azerbaijan has presented its own ides  to Armenia of what specific provisions should be included in the  future peace agreement to be signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

"Briefly, they are: 1) mutual recognition of territorial integrity 2)  ruling out territorial claims 3) ruling out use of force or threat of  force 4) border delimitation and demarcation and establishment of  diplomatic relations 5) unblocking of communications. That is,  Azerbaijan proposes its own vision or a draft peace agreement, its  vision of the form of the documents," Mr Zurabyan wrote.  Armenia's  response was clear. According to diplomatic rules, Armenia was to  present its vision of the same agreement.

"And now our government has proclaimed six points presented in  response. On May 13, Edmon Marukyan made them public. So what? We  find out that Armenia has no idea of what it wanted to include in the  agreement or of what it wanted to change in Azerbaijan's proposals,"  Mr Zurabyan wrote.

Scrutinizing Armenia's response shows that, instead of its own  proposals and ideas, Armenia presented the following: 

1) "Discontent" with an unnamed co-chair responsible for a 20-day  delay in Armenia receiving, allegedly on March 11, a letter sent by  Azerbaijan on February 21. 2) Stating the historical fact that,  according to the authors, proves that by joining the Declaration on  CIS back in 1991, Armenia recognized Azerbaijan's territorial  integrity (and it remains unclear if Armenia is ready to include the  point on mutual recognition of territorial integrity in the text of  the agreement or not). 3) The claim about Nagorno-Karabakh's final  status being a "matter of principle" for the Armenian side, which  does not specify the status or mechanism Armenia is proposing to  settle the issue (this claim cannot even be viewed as a proposal to  put the issue of status on the negotiations agenda)  

4) The claim about Armenia attaching "importance" to honoring the  commitments under the Russian- Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements, which  claim cannot even be viewed as a demand to honor the commitments or  as a precondition for negotiations or at least as a proposal for  putting it on the agenda. 

5) A statement on the readiness to start negotiations, which, in  fact, confirms Armenia is not putting forward any preconditions for  negotiations. 

6) A report claiming that the Armenian side applied to the OSCE Minsk  Group co-chairs for organizing negotiations (idiotic behavior given  the co-chairs' inability for teamwork in the context of the  Russia-West relations) 

According to Zurabyan, this text shows that in their reply letter the  Armenian authorities only "stated their feelings about the ongoing  negotiations, made a dubious excursion into the historical domain,  hinting at the other negotiators honoring their commitments,  introduced romantic proposals for organizing the negotiations," Mr  Zurabyan wrote. 

"In short, they have done all they could except for what they should  have done in this process of crucial importance for Armenia and  Artsakh," he added.  

According to him, the Armenian authorities did not present its  proposals to either Azerbaijan or the international community.

"Even Azerbaijani Foreign Minister [Jeyhun] Bayramov jeered at this  lukewarm response, while reading the first point and asking 'So what  is Armenia's proposal here?'

"Have no doubts that these people are making a laughingstock of us  everywhere and failing any business.  They have no elementary  understanding of international politics and diplomacy of negotiations  - be it Nikol Pashinyan, Ararat Mirzoyan, Armen Grigoryan, Vahagn  Khachaturyan or Edmon Marukyan. Under the circumstances, as long as  Armenia lacks a competent and responsible government, the only hope  in the diplomatic process is that the superpowers' interests and  plans will concur with those of Armenia. But it is a most slender  theoretical chance," Mr Zurabyan wrote.