On the ways of peaceful settlement of Karabakh conflict (08/04/2010)

Peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict in accordance with the norms and principles of international law is quite feasible task

In 2008, the head of the NGO Academy of Political Studies, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Alexander Manasyan in the book “The Karabakh Conflict. The minimal package of political and legal facts and arguments, “(” Tigran Mets “publishing house, Yerevan, 2008, p.6.) Rightly noted:” Since the problem is politicized, neither in the Minsk Group, where the negotiations on the Karabakh conflict are already conducted almost two decades, no “Legal package of the Karabakh conflict” has been submitted to the UN or to any other international competent authority.

There are at least three ways to resolve the Karabakh conflict peacefully:

1) The Karabakh conflict is actually settled by the Armenians, the NKR is liberated from the occupation and the 70-year-old colonial yoke.

Recall that in 1960 the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration “On the urgent provision of independence to colonial countries and peoples”.

“The collapse of colonialism began in Asia. In 1943, Syria and Lebanon gained independence from the colonial yoke, in 1945 collapsed colonialism in Vietnam, proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, in 1947 India gained independence. The victory of the Chinese revolution (1949) dealt a severe blow to colonialism. In the first postwar decade, Jordan (1946), Pakistan (1947), Burma (1948), Sri Lanka (1048), Libya (1951), Cambodia, (1953), Laos (1953) were proclaimed sovereign states. In 1952, Egypt was liberated from a semi-colonial state. In 1956-1965, more than 60 countries of Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America received state independence. In 1959, the revolution in Cuba won … In April 1974, the fascist regime in Portugal was overthrown by the democratic revolution, and the independence of the colonies (Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola) began … “. Moreover, “Under the colonial yoke there are still 20 million people: in the British Empire (including Southern Rhodesia), in the French and Spanish colonies and dependent countries.” (Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Yerevan, 1976, p. 670).

Why do we provide these encyclopedic data in such detail? Because they talk about a lot. Because the NKR also freed itself from the colonial yoke imposed on it by the decision of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (B.) Of July 5, 1921.

And it is therefore quite natural that one of the ways to recognize NKR independence is to appeal to the UN Board of Trustees, which since the 1960s dealt with the problems of the peoples who gained independence; according to the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted in 1960, to obtain confirmation by the UN Board of Trustees of the fact of the liberation of the NKR from the colonial yoke and the recognition of its independence achieved as a result of the victory in the aggressive war unleashed by the Republic of Azerbaijan. (See “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”, General Assembly, 947th plenary meeting, 14 December 1960).

2) Political scientist Ara Papyan offers another way to resolve the Karabakh conflict. “The only legal document on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is the report-proposal of the Special Commission of the Paris Assembly of February 24, 1920, according to which the right of demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border was granted to the League of Nations. Therefore, the UN as the successor to the League of Nations, and in particular the UN Security Council, as the authorized body of the main allied forces, is obliged to implement this demarcation of borders, taking as a basis the data on the national distribution for November-December 1920. The current national distribution can not be the basis for the demarcation of borders, because is a consequence of the criminal Azerbaijani policy of deportation and ethnic cleansing, and the consequences of a crime can not be called rights: Ex injuria non oritur jus. ” (See Ara Papian, Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Expertise in accordance with international law, (“Uht Ararati” magazine, 2 (16), November-December, 2008, p. 11).

This means that if the UN Security Council, as the successor to the authorized body of the main allied forces of the League of Nations, upon the relevant application of the RA, demarcates the Armenia-Azerbaijan border according to the national distribution for November-December 1920, the NKR (by the way, with territorial integrity) is part of the RA , and therefore political debates on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in international institutions become meaningless.

Perhaps, this option is the best, since in this case the problem of occupation and deportation of the Armenians of Nakhichevan also becomes the subject of investigation.

It should be added that the implementation of this decision is provided for in Article 92 of the Treaty of Sevres of August 10, 1920, and looks as follows:

“Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Georgia will be determined by common consent of the countries concerned. After the decision provided for in Article 89 has been rendered, and after if any of the States concerned, with the general consent, can not determine their borders, the latter will be determined by the Main Allied Powers, which at the same time will have to attend to applying it on place “.

3) In previous publications, we have already mentioned that there is no conflict in the world, for which there is no legal option for settlement. One of them is the internationally recognized order and agreement on the peaceful settlement of conflicts, called the “Convention on the Peaceful Resolution of International Conflicts” (See “Convention on the Peaceful Resolution of International Conflicts”, The Hague, October 18, 1907).

The Convention provides for three consecutive stages of a peaceful settlement of the conflict:

a) in accordance with the requirements of Article 2 of the second section of the Convention, at the first stage, the conflicting parties should use the mediation missions of one or more countries. In accordance with the requirement of Article 5, Section 5, the mediation mission is completed from the moment when one of the conflicting parties or the mediator is satisfied that no peace offers are accepted by any of the conflicting parties;

b) in accordance with the 9th article of the third section of the Convention, a commission is formed to investigate the causes of the conflict, which conducts an impartial and conscientious investigation into the causes of the conflict and submits its proposals to the parties to the conflict. If the proposals of the commission of inquiry are also not accepted by any of the conflicting parties, the issue is transferred to the next stage;

c) in the third stage, in accordance with Article 41 of the second chapter of the 4th section of the Convention, the matter is transferred to a specially established arbitration court, whose decisions are already binding on the conflicting parties. It is obvious that the format of the mediation mission of the Minsk Group has exhausted itself in accordance with the provisions of this Convention, because for more than 18 years its proposals have not been accepted by one of the conflicting parties, mainly Azerbaijan, which does not reconcile with the reality that the NKR has already freed itself from the colonial yoke. Therefore, the Minsk Group should be dissolved, and as a second step, in accordance with the provision and requirement of the Convention, an International Commission of Inquiry should be established to conduct an impartial investigation into the causes of the conflict.

All of the above options are eligible for engagement and can be productive. This means that a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict in accordance with the norms and principles of international law is quite feasible task. And all those who either do not want a peaceful settlement of the conflict, or bypass the means of legal settlement, in fact, provoke a new war and genocide …

“Ukht Ararati” (“Testament of Ararat”), Public initiative of soldiers and former political prisoners of the Armenian secret army for the liberation of Armenia

08/04/2010