KARABAKH’S SOVEREIGNTY: CONCEPTION OF THE PAST
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…
Assertion five: any action by Armenia in the international arena is directly connected with Karabakh. Thereupon, some recent comments of the Armenian officials on the Armenian-Turkish settlement regardless of the Karabakh issue are extremely absurd… Generally, our ministers would better explain us nothing: this would be somehow calmer… Meanwhile, we should have created a legitimate joint Armenian-Karabakhi consultative body long ago for coordinating our positions in international affairs. The personal relationship and long-standing friendship of Armenia’s and Karabakh’s leaders should not and cannot replace the institutional and, in fact, interstate contacts. We have already a negative experience of substituting Armenia for Karabakh at the negotiations on the conflict settlement – it shouldn’t be forgotten… And, at last, assertion six prompted by our great contemporary, prominent Turkish writer and Nobel Prize Laureate Orkhan Pamuk: subjective human memory is the basic guarantor of Karabakh’s sovereignty. The great Turk has recently stated in Moscow that this memory is much more important than historical memory, which is propagandized in textbooks and which becomes a part of official information. We should set off just the subjective human memory against the Turkish adherents of ransacking in archives, as it never lies and betrays… Exactly that very memory of each Karabakhian bears utmost clear and strict picture of destructing the Armenian cultural and spiritual heritage, which did take place, and just that very memory made and makes the Karabakh people’s living in a state with the Azerbaijani dominant impossible, despite the idle talks of the ardent supporters of territorial integrity… By the way, even the acknowledgement of the principle of inviolability of frontiers in the recent Armenian-Turkish Protocols (we’ll return to this later) gives in to the subjective human memory of the descendants of Karsians and Igdirians…
For the last 18 years, we have fixed certain ideological stamps and stereotypes, the majority of which should be flatly rejected. This is required by the national interests of both Armenian states.
ARMEN DARBINIAN
NOVOYE VREMYA
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