Political scientist: US support to Armenian president causes failure to sign agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh

The agreement reached on Nagorno-Karabakh has not been signed because of U.S. support to Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan, the Director of the Center for Political Innovation and Technology, a political scientist Mubariz Ahmedoglu said at a news conference.

"Great hopes had been made for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by the end of 2009. Official Baku now also proposes to sign the document agreed in late 2009. The Armenian side rejects it, and imitating various ideas, is trying to change the essence of the conflict settlement," said Ahmedoglu.

According to Ahmedoglu, Sargsyan has achieved this to some extent. "At least, the failure to sign the document on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict gives the right to say it. The Prague process also ended with this, during which no final result was achieved. The Prague process envisaged the immediate return of five Azerbaijani regions, Lachin and Kelbajar regions were to be returned over the next three to five years, the issues of Azerbaijanis' living in Shusha, the restoration of communications, establishing economic relations and beginning defining the status of Nagorno-Karabakh had to be resolved within five to seven years," said the analyst.

According to Ahmedoglu, there are two reasons for failure to sign the agreement. "The first reason is the U.S. support to Serzh Sargsyan. The United States now also hopes that Sargsyan will fulfill his special mission set by the United States - a mission to oust Russia from the region," said the analyst.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen from the United States mainly in individual interviews made statements meeting the interests of the Armenians, said Ahmedoglu. "For example, the co-chairmen from the United States listed the principles and provisions of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement not as stated in the official document, but in the sequence that meets the interests of the Armenians," said the political analyst.

He said the second reason is the signing of two protocols that provide normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia.

"Initially it was known that Sargsyan's purpose in the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations is to delay the process of peaceful settlement of the conflict. Unfortunately, this step of Turkey became one of the factors that enabled the Armenian president to evade the peace settlement," said Ahmedoglu.


/Trend/