OSCE OBSERVERS EXPECTED IN KARABAKH

PanARMENIAN.Net - Some details about the upcoming visit of the inspection group members are already known. Delegation membership and the route of the tour are already settled. Besides Minsk group co-chairmen, the delegation will also include representatives from Finland, Italy, Sweden and Germany. This composition of the delegation was approved by Azerbaijan and Armenia at the suggestion of mediators. The two partied did not give their consent concerning the participation of other countries. On the request of Azerbaijan the members of the mission will go to Karabakh not from Armenia as it is usually done during the visits of foreign delegates, but from Baku. This is connected with a lot of difficulties of organizational and military nature. Besides, there are grounds for fear that in Baku they will try to "work on" the members of the mission as needed. Meanwhile the inspectors will not have the opportunity to hear the arguments of the opposite party since they will visit neither Yerevan nor Stepanakert.

The inspection will be carried out in 5 security zones: Kelbajar, Lachin, Kubatlu, Zangelan and Jebrail. The mission members will not visit Aghdam and Fizouli since Azerbaijanians themselves say that there are no Armenian settlements there. However, the inspectors will have nothing to do also in Kubatlu, Zangelan and Jebrail since there they will find nothing but military installations and outposts. As for the two regions separating Karabakh from Armenia it is common knowledge that Armenian families are really populated there. But the majority of those families are refugees from Azerbaijan mostly from occupied Northern Karabakh which is fully populated with Azeris. The members of the mission will have the opportunity to get assured in that. One should think that they will also ask themselves why Azerbaijan can illegally populate the occupied territories while Karabakh cannot settle the victims of Azerbaijanian aggression in the regions controlled by Karabakh. Whatever the inspectors' report is, it will allow the Armenian party to demand a similar mission to be carried out in Shahumyan and Getashen. There the experts will witness a much more demonstrative situation.

The consent of Armenia to the visit of inspectors allowed removing from the UN agenda the issue of passing a resolution on the so called "occupied regions". However, it seems that Azerbaijan tries to keep ways for maneuver. The deputy foreign minister of Russia recently stated that the authorities of Azerbaijan promised Washington and Moscow not to arouse any issue in the UN on passing the anti-Armenian resolution. But on Thursday Azerbaijan deputy foreign minister Araz Azimov made an unexpected announcement contradicting to the previous one. According to him, Azerbaijanian party has just "made a break" in the issue of passing the resolution in UN. "Let the mission visit the region, prepare and submit its report. After that, having familiarized with the report we shall make appropriate steps", he stated. This kind of position can be called nothing else but blackmail.

Meanwhile, certain forces in Azerbaijan demand that Baku puts the draft resolution to the vote regardless of the contents of the report. Yet before the visit of the mission to the region Millie Majlis deputy Zahid Oroudj had prejudiced the objectivity of its members. In the interview to Baku reporters he assumed that the mediators are "only taking time". The leader of the notorious "Karabakh Liberation Organization" Akif Nagi has called to get back to discussing the issue in UN. "Tomorrow it will be too late!" Nagi says.