Karabakh’s sovereignty is the skeleton and binding foundation of the Armenian statehood
Unfortunately, only a small number of people realize this - otherwise, we would have resolved the demographic issue there long ago, some ‘analysts’ wouldn’t treat Karabakh as just the eleventh marz (region) of Armenia, and apology-for-politicians wouldn’t call for immediate adoption of a state act on Karabakh’s recognition and wouldn’t make party (?!) decisions in this regard… But, first, let’s give some assertions.
Assertion one: Nagorno Karabakh has much more grounds to claim for sovereignty and its realization than any other Republic of the former USSR (except the Baltic states and including Armenia) just because Karabakh’s sovereignty is the result of its national-liberation struggle, while the sovereignty of the former USSR Republics followed the Empire’s collapse. Surely, this statement can embarrass many people, especially Armenian national-patriots, as the latters use to identify themselves with, at least, the USA fathers-founders… But this doesn’t change the issue’s core: Armenians, like other title nations of the former USSR Republics, were not ready for independence (let’s recall, at least, the brainless assurances of our ‘activists’ that the country can be fed just with ‘Jermuk’…) and didn’t even know initially what to do with it… But the Karabakh people knew!..
Assertion two: for the nations, which gained their statehood as a result of a national-liberation struggle, declarative sovereignty (when a nation states or declares its independence) is much more important than constitutive sovereignty (which considers recognition by other states a necessary condition for sovereignty). I would remind that according to article 3 of the Montevideo Convention of 1933, “… Political existence of a state doesn’t depend on its recognition by other states”.
Assertion three: the fact of single recognition of declarative sovereignty by a specifically interested state or a new metropolitan country doesn’t enhance and, on the contrary, weakens that very declarative sovereignty without introducing any element of constitutive sovereignty into the situation… So, Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (without taking into account the casus with Nicaragua), maybe prompted by Russia’s interests, in fact, weakened their declarative sovereignty and deprived them of any prospects of gaining constitutive sovereignty, at least in the nearest future… Just proceeding from this, Armenia must not recognize Karabakh’s sovereignty alone – we’ll only weaken our common positions.
Assertion four: the statehood of Nagorno Karabakh is our national property, which should be treated properly. And while Armenia is currently a financial donor for Karabakh, Karabakh is a donor of spirit and courage, greatly helping Armenians realize the importance and value of their own statehood…
ARMEN DARBINIAN
NOVOYE VREMYA