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The spokesman for President of Nagorno Karabakh Republic David Babayan spoke about PACE rapporteur Milica Markovic’s report on Sarsang reservoir in Karabakh and the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement process.   

When asked if the visit of M. Markovic to Karabakh will change anything, David Babayan replied: “Our position remains unchanged, and we believe that if social, humanitarian issues are being politicized, there is an implication here. There is a large field for speculation here so we are against processes of this kind”.

“As regards the issue of Sarsang reservoir in Karabakh, I should say that official Stepanakert has repeatedly voiced that issue. In1998-1999 the authorities of Artsakh expressed a readiness to provide part of Sarsang’s water resources to Azerbaijan as a measure aimed at forming an atmosphere of mutual trust,, as a humanitarian gesture to improve living conditions of people, while official Baku always rejected that proposal.   

Moreover, in 2007 when the last closed-door talks between Artsakh and Azerbaijan took place in Brussels, we put forward the same idea that was again turned down, with the following explanation: the cultivation of agricultural crops after receiving those water resources would make an insignificant share of oil revenues. In other words, the Azerbaijani authorities apparently hinder satisfaction of their population’s water needs, thus flagrantly violating both local laws and international law. Such is Azerbaijan, and unfortunately there are no logical means of struggling against that state. Now they are politicizing the situation.

We have always stated that we are prepared to discuss any report with any rapporteur provided that the document is objective, comprehensive and does not politicize one or another process, which happened in case of Walter’s report “smelling of caviar”.   Of course, some facts suggest that it is not ruled out that the PACE will not be able to find in its immune system any powerful recipes for combating Azerbaijani corruption,” Karabakh president’s spokesman noted.

D. Babayan then answered a question about whether the Karabakh settlement process could be affected by M. Markovic’s draft report on Sarsang reservoir and the scandalous report on Nagorno Karabakh that was prepared by PACE MP Robert Walter (UK) and approved on November 4, 2015 by the PACE Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy.

“I think there will be no impact in a political sense. But on the whole, this will have an adverse impact from a moral point of view – there can be no positive effect when foreign structures interfere in the process, especially when they write reports by someone’s order. Azerbaijan will use it as a propaganda banner by voicing and appealing to them all the time, even though such reports are consultative and legally non-binding. Recommendations should be kind and objective, which cannot be said in this case,” Babayan said.

He shared the opinion that Baku’s policy to achieve success through made-to-order reports is more directed at the domestic audience, because, according to D. Babayan, such documents have no importance on the foreign political arena. He added that the two reports will not have a significant impact even on Azerbaijan’s domestic audience extremely dissatisfied with the Aliyev clan.

When asked if the socioeconomic crisis in Azerbaijan due to falling prices of energy resources could escalate tensions on the line of contact between the forces of Karabakh and Azerbaijan as the border situation may be used as diversionary tactics to bring the social protests to an end, D. Babayan said: “If Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is reasonable at least to some extent, he should not be interested in unleashing a large-scale war. There is also another problem here. He wants to legitimize his power and tries to oblige the world to legitimize it, and through ceasefire violations on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and on the line of contact with Karabakh, I. Aliyev is taking measures so that the international community could give priority to him. So ceasefire violations are yet another attempt by Aliyev to legitimize his power”.

“He always resorts to escalating the situation on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan and the line of contact between the armed forces of Karabakh and Azerbaijan and then presents himself to the international community as a politician capable of maintaining peace in a tense situation. As a result, Alieyev seems to be more preferable. If a war starts and Alieyev is defeated, then he will not be able to retain power, and in addition, he will lose his life and property because through blackmail he chose two main targets for himself.

First, Aliyev manipulates the Karabakh conflict in order to distract the population from domestic processes. Now the Azerbaijani authorities told their citizens that Armenia and Karabakh allegedly caused material damage of $800 billion to Azerbaijan, but in reality the matter concerns funds plundered by officials of that country. In this way Aliyev is trying to shift the blame on Armenia.

Secondly, Aliyev wants to show the international community that there is an explosive situation, while he is a person able to deter the processes to avoid more complex developments. Thus he tries to prolong his power, or to be more precise, ‘eternalize’ the rule of his clan in Azerbaijan,” David Babayan said.

He was also asked to assess the current state of talks on the Karabakh settlement. Babayan said: ‘The negotiating process as such can be considered as the lesser of the evils as there are two options: to freeze the negotiations or continue them in a distorted form. The Armenian people and the two Armenian states have gone through many hardships, and such a state of affairs is more preferable for us than a large-scale war or freezing the talks. Yet today’s format just enables to maintain peace and stability in the region. It is the only option and it is too early to speak about a comprehensive settlement. Azerbaijan is facing numerous problems, and if the international community recognizes Alieyev’s legitimacy as president, he is likely to follow a conflict resolution path. He is resorting to destructive steps to retain power. He uses bribery, takes ant-Armenian steps and blackmails the international community with the aim of making it to recognize his legitimacy. As long as this issue remains unresolved,  progress in the talks can hardly be expected. For that reason even this distorted option allows maintaining relative peace and stability so should continue our efforts in this sense. In the future the situation may be ripe, and a full-fledged participation of official Stepanakert in the negotiations may be restored”.