Commenting on the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs’ latest visit to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, “Zhamanak” says Armenia’s leadership is now extremely unlikely to sign up to a peace deal with Azerbaijan based on their Basic Principles. “Even if Baku is ready to sign a document mentioning Karabakh’s status,” writes the paper. It does not expect Azerbaijan to do that either.
“Zhoghovurd” praises U.S. co-chair James Warlick for clarifying in Yerevan on Monday that a Karabakh peace deal should contain a mechanism for determining Karabakh’s status through a “free expression of the will” of its residents. The paper believes that this statement should be enough to silence “anti-American” elements in Armenia accusing the United States of seeking disproportionate Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan. It says Warlick also “indirectly” made clear that Karabakh’s leadership is a party to the negotiating process. This statement is “extremely welcome for the Armenian side,” concludes the paper.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and its opposition allies are now “buoyed” by President Serzh Sarkisian’s constitutional amendments, seeing an opportunity to use them for making or imitating a new push for power. These forces, the paper says, are now attacking not so much Sarkisian as other opposition groups that do not think that the constitutional reform issue can be used for toppling the ruling regime. “What [the HAK and link-minded parties] are saying is that if somebody does not plan to hold huge rallies and declare every Monday and Friday a day of regime change, then it means they have sold out to the hated regime … And this is said by those who were leading us to a powerful anti-government revolution under the leadership of the great leader Gagik Tsarukian just a few months ago,” it says tartly.
Lragir.am reports that during Monday’s joint news conference in Yerevan with the visiting European Council President Donald Tusk, Sarkisian criticized the European Union for contributing to “impunity” which he said is enjoyed by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in the international arena. The online journal says Tusk replied diplomatically that he will adopt “objective” positions in both Baku and Yerevan. “Instead of lecturing Europe on impunity and its consequences, [Sarkisian] should implement [the content of] that lecture in his own country, against members of his party -- representatives of the criminal oligarchy,” it says.
(Tigran Avetisian)