By Adonia Agayan

Azerbaijani UN Resolution" src="http://www.yerevanreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/minsk_group_countries_may_vote_against_azerbaijani_un_resolution.gif" alt="" width="290" height="178" />YEREVAN, September 2 — The Brussels-based organization European Friends of Armenia (EuFoA) calls on the EU countries to unanimously confirm their support for the Nagorno Karabakh peace negotiations and to vote against the UN resolution submitted by Azerbaijan.

“It is expected that at the UN General Assembly opening on September 9 three Co-Chairs of OSCE Minsk group, France, Russia and USA, will vote against the resolution,” the EuFoA said in a statement.

EuFoA also adds that despite EU’s prolonged support for the OSCE Minsk Group the common response of all the EU countries is still left to be seen.

“The OSCE Minsk Group remains the only internationally mandated format of the mediation efforts. We have come a very long way and the process is full of specific sensitivities. I hope that all the EU countries will speak with one voice at the UN to reiterate the EU’s support for a conclusion of the negotiations under the Minsk Group. No UN resolution should endanger those negotiations and I hope that the EU capitals and the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton are now coordinating their actions,” said Michael Kambeck, the EuFoA General Secretary.

“The UN is not the right level to discuss this question because there is only one international mandate to resolve this issue and it lies with the OSCE Minsk Group,” he said.

While this resolution may seem harmless, EuFoA is very worried and considers it as dangerous for a number of reasons:

It is yet another Azerbaijani attempt to bring this conflict to a different forum.  Azerbaijan believes it can acquire more support, especially from friendly Islamic countries. But this ethnic conflict has never had a religious basis and neither Islamic countries nor anyone else interested in peace should now add such a religious component.

The Minsk Group Co-Chairs have stated that the steps to a peaceful resolution of the conflict are so clear and the negotiations are so advanced that if there was more goodwill, then they could be concluded very quickly. Being so close to the goal, a change of forum could derail the whole process.

The resolution text reflects the Azerbaijani views, especially regarding the principle of territorial integrity, while the Minsk Group Co-Chairs have made it clear in their Almaty statement of July 17 that all the proposed principles of a peaceful solution to the conflict “have been conceived as an integrated whole and any attempts to select some elements over others would make it impossible to achieve a balanced solution.”

Referring to these reasons Kambeck said, “This conflict has never been about religion, about Islam versus Christianity. This is an ethnic conflict, and if now we start adding a religious component to it, it will become even more difficult to resolve the whole conflict.” He then added, “This resolution is very single-sided. You basically have only two options, as an international body — you either rewrite it completely, or reject it, if you want to make it a balanced text.”

The EuFoA was established in 2009 by European parliamentarians and intellectuals. Its purpose is to promote Armenia’s integration into European political and economic structures.

Yerevan Report