ArmeniaNow The March 24 assessment report released by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs after their field mission to the NKR Defense army-controlled seven districts around the territory of the former Autonomous Region of Nagorno Karabakh (ARNK) has elicited a flurry of commentaries in Armenia.

If judged from the main accents of all assessments, the overall picture is as follows: the Armenian authorities are hindering the re-settlement of the “seven districts” hoping for the international recognition of the NKR’s status as an independent state within the former ARNK borders.

At the same time, it says that the international community promises no guarantees of such or any other status. Moreover, even the theoretical readiness to dispute the status of the seven districts belonging to NKR by its constitution is not perceived unanimously at all in the Armenian community.

Head of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) faction Vahan Hovhannisyan says that the Armenian side views the territory of the NKR within its constitutional borders. Speaking about the seven districts he stressed that “those lands are as mush part of the NKR as the capital Stepanakert is”.

The authors of the report do not share this viewpoint, using definitions like “Azerbaijan’s occupied lands” or – at best – “disputed territories”. Official Baku regards not only the seven lands but also the whole territory of the former ARNK as “occupied lands”.

Nevertheless, Hovhannisyan believes that the international community does not view Nagorno-Karabakh as an occupied territory. It is another matter that by “Nagorno-Karabakh” it implies the territory of the former ARNK. In this connection the title of the field mission report is noteworthy – “Report of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ Field Assessment Mission to the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan Surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh”.

According to Hovhannisyan, such a position of the international community was confirmed during the OSCE chairman-in-office’s recent visit to Armenia.

“When we asked why the OSCE leader did not go to Stepanakert, he answered that since there is no direct land communication he would have to pass through territories they believe to be occupied. It means that he dose not view Stepanakert and the NKR in general as occupied lands,” says Hovhannisian.

Head of the ruling Republican Party’s parliamentary faction Galust Sahakyan has a positive view of the assessment report, saying that “most importantly there is a point in the report according to which all parties to the conflict have to participate in the settlement process, which means including Stepanakert”.

Speaking about the re-settlement process for the seven districts around Nagorno-Karabakh proper, Sahakyan says it is not a matter of politics, but of finances. In other words, he says, the Armenian authorities are not sabotaging the re-settlement process.

“The re-settlement of the territories cannot be done merely by patriotic sentiments, considerable financial means are necessary to achieve that goal. Of course, it would be great if the population grew twice or thrice over the years, but it cannot be accomplished by patriotism, it would take huge investments,” he said.

Political analyst Alexander Kananyan, residing in one of those territories in Nagorno Karabakh, says:

“Undoubtedly, the report is rather symptomatic, since it confirms once again that the governments of Armenia and the NKR have not been taking any tangible steps, at least over the past five years, to re-settle the liberated lands incorporated into the administrative-territorial division of Artsakh.”

“Starting from 2007, construction has been almost completely suspended on the liberated territories, a fact that raises quite serious questions addressed not only to Yerevan but Stepanakert as well. And if this year Stepanakert as represented by the president and the government does not undertake anything to resume construction, that would point to their complicity in this [kind of] re-settlement policy [or lack of it],” says Kananyan.

He is convinced that there exists a deliberate sabotage of the re-settlement process on the part of Armenian authorities. It is noteworthy that the authors of the report have stated that “since 2005 no substantial growth of population has been registered” in these territories.