The debate over the joint statement on Nagorno-Karabakh made at the G8 Summit in Canada on Saturday, by the presidents of Russia, the United States and France, continue unabated in Armenia. The Armenian authorities appear satisfied with the statement, even though they agree, “there are some worrisome terms”, whereas the opposition and analysts insist that it is a “crushing defeat.”

The clamor over the statement has even cast a shadow on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s upcoming visit to the region: according to preliminary information, Clinton will arrive in Yerevan on July 4, soon after her visit to Azerbaijani capital Baku the same day. The U.S. official will be on a five-nation tour July 1-5, which besides Armenia and Azerbaijan will include stops in Ukraine, Poland and Georgia.

An official in Washington said this week while in Baku and Yerevan Clinton will “underscore” the peace message contained in the June 26 joint statement of the presidents of the U.S., France and Russia, which jointly spearhead the international efforts on finding a negotiated peace in the Karabakh conflict.

The controversy over the statement intensified in Armenia after debate shifted onto the language of the statement, or more precisely the discrepancy between the original English text and the translated Russian version posted on the Kremlin website.

The Russian version of the statement differs from the one that carries the presidents’ signatures on two key provisions. .

The original version says, “…return of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh”; whereas the word ‘occupied’ does not exist in the Russian translation, in Russian it is written, “return of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“This is an evident deceit, a real deception, and it is not quite clear what it is done for,” says member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun, ARF) Vahan Hovhannisyan.

The other discrepancy is connected with the term related to the ‘expression of will’. The English version says, “…final status of Nagorno-Karabakh to be determined in the future by a legally-binding expression of will,” whereas in Russian it is written, “…final status of Nagorno-Karabakh to be determined in the future by a legally-binding expression of will by its population.”

“In the original version it is not determined whose ‘expression of will’ is meant -- the population of Nagorno-Karabakh or someone else’s. It is not even written ‘the population of the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region’. This means that the document is drafted in a way so that the sides can interpret it the way they want to; and Azerbaijan has already interpreted it in a way favorable to it, saying that the referendum will be held on the whole territory of Azerbaijan and by the whole Azeri population,” Hovhannisyan says.

The Armenian lawmaker is also infuriated by the Armenian authorities’ admitting, without any grounds, that the ‘expression of will’ merely refers to the population of Karabakh.

“As long as it is not distinctly written in any document [who the ‘expression of will’ refers to], no one can insist that only the population of Karabakh will participate in the ‘expression of will’ voting,” Hovhannisyan adds.

Even though Eduard Sharmazanov, the spokesman for the President Serzh Sargsyan-led ruling Republican Party of Armenia, considers the statement to be “a constructive statement containing positive elements,” he still stresses: “Armenia does not embrace it with open arms.”

“We are concerned over the sequence of [Nagorno-Karabakh issue] normalization basic principles included in the document. First ‘the return of occupied territories’ is mentioned, and only then - ‘the interim status for Nagorno-Karabakh’; whereas we are interested in their being simultaneous, or the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status must be settled first,” Sharmazanov told ArmeniaNow.

In spite of the concerns, on June 27, Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandyan stated that he was pleased with the statement, and that he “commended the desire and consistent efforts of international mediators in supporting the sides to bring their positions closer and move forward with the peaceful settlement of the conflict.”

Dashnaktsutyun’s Hovhannisyan is opposed to this position and urges the authorities “not to indulge in self-deception and to admit that the statement is a crushing defeat.”


Click here for the original (English) version of the text of the statement of the presidents of Russia, the United States and France on Karabakh as per the White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/g8-summit-joint-statement-nagorno-karabakh

Click here for the official Kremlin version of the same text in Russian (translated from the original): http://news.kremlin.ru/ref_notes/623