An all-national rally was to have been held in Karabakh on July 23, the day after the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague upheld the legitimacy of the Serbian breakaway region of Kosovo’s proclamation of independence. People were about to pour into the streets, a large group of journalists from Yerevan had arrived in Stepanakert. But the rally was canceled with explanation.

Instead, the heads of the three factions in the Karabakh parliament and the NKR president held press conferences in Stepanakert. The country’s leadership said the ICJ judgment on the legality of the secession of Kosovo will be a milestone in the struggle for the recognition of Karabakh’s independence. But the political forces said Karabakh is not going to apply to the court for the recognition of its right to self-determination – in Karabakh they think that they have already exercised this right, which they had earned through suffering, and what remains to do is to get the recognition of the country’s independence.

The UN court decision was hailed by the United States and the European Union. Russia pronounced against it. Still, almost none seemed to be contesting the validity of the decision, but were simply saying that it could open a Pandora box for unrecognized countries. On July 22, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, answering the question whether the decision of the Hague court could be applied to other similar cases and lead to nationalist movements in the rest of Europe, said: “I’ll be brief, no.”

“One can single out the fair arguments made by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which stated that the International Court of Justice had failed to consider the question of the legality of a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, had failed to address the possible consequences of such a self-proclamation and the international court has not said whether Kosovo is a state or not,” said head of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry press service Elhan Polukhov.

Nevertheless, during the Friday press conference, NKR President Bako Sahakyan said that regardless of the recognition of Kosovo, Karabakh will continue its efforts for international recognition of its independence.

He stressed that over the past years the position of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has not changed: the independence and security of Karabakh aren’t negotiable. “We consider the independence of Karabakh not within the borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region,” he said.

The President also said that the recognition of Karabakh by Armenia is not an end in itself.

The head of the Homeland parliamentary faction Arthur Tovmasyan believes that Armenia’s parliament may take the decision of the court as a basis for starting the process of recognizing NKR.

Stepanakert holds that the format of the current internationally mediated negotiations with Azerbaijan should be changed and Karabakh should join them as a full party. Vahram Atanesyan, a member of the Democracy faction in the Karabakh parliament, said that from now Karabakh has got more grounds to insist on its participation in the talks.

Head of the Dashnaktsutyun faction Armen Sargsyan said: “It is Karabakh that should be a full party of the talks and Armenia should take part in the negotiations within a strictly defined legal framework – as the guarantor of Karabakh’s independence and security.”

Chairman of the NKR Public Council on Foreign Policy and Security Masis Mayilyan noted that Armenia has good reason to start talks with Pristina on the recognition by Yerevan of the independence of Kosovo and the recognition of NKR’s independence by Pristina. “The restraint shown by Armenia in the matter of recognizing Kosovo during the past two years has not produced tangible results, while Serbia has successfully developed its relations with the countries that were among the first to recognize Kosovo’s independence (Turkey, the United States, the European Union),” said Mayilyan.

Meanwhile, the NKR Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which it said that “the right of the people of Karabakh to have and build their state, as well as determine their own destiny will undoubtedly be recognized by the international community, since it was realized in full accordance with the basic principles of international law and is hard-won and fair.”