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No opening date yet for controversial Karabakh airport

06 May 2011 [11:24] - TODAY.AZ
Authorities have attributed the ongoing delay in announcing an official opening date for an airport in the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh to technical impediments as controversy continues to swirl around the project.

Last month, Azerbaijani authorities threatened to shoot down any planes "invading" its airspace before subsequently backing down.

Responding to the Azerbaijani threat, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian said he would be the first passenger on the first plane to the airport, according to Armenian media.

Denis Chagnon, a press secretary for the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, recently called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to solve the issue amid rising tension in the Caucasus over the airport plans.

"The contracting states [Azerbaijan and Armenia] recognize that every state must refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight and that, in case of interception, the lives of persons onboard and the safety of the aircraft must not be endangered," Chagnon said.

Asked by the Hürriyet Daily News whether the opening of the airport has been suspended due to international pressure, the former deputy foreign minister for the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh separatist government denied this was the case.

"The argument that the international community’s pressure is mounting does not reflect the truth. It is only because of technical problems that a definite date is not being announced," said Masis Mayilian, who is also the "head of the NKR Public Council on Foreign Policy and Security Issues".

Mayilian also responded to Azerbaijan’s statements regarding an invasion of its airspace.

"Flights will not go near Azerbaijani airspace. Flights traveling from Karabakh to the [Armenian] capital, Yerevan, will pass through Armenian airspace," he said.

Asked whether the decision to not announce the date of the flight was due to international pressure, Tolga Uçak, a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman from the information bureau, indicated the issue was between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"Only Armenia can provide an answer to this question," Uçak told the Daily News.

A flashpoint of the Caucasus, the region known as Nagorno-Karabakh is a constituent part of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia since the end of 1994. While internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, the enclave has declared itself an independent republic but is administered as a de facto part of Armenia.

The Nagorno-Karabakh War from 1988 to 1994, and the subsequent occupation by Armenia, led to the deaths of more than 30,000 and created nearly 1 million refugees, who largely remain in temporary settlement camps and facilities in Azerbaijan.

Years of negotiations involving Russia, the United States and Europe, as well as Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders themselves, have failed to resolve the enclave’s status or enable the return of refugees. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of its close ally Azerbaijan in the conflict.

‘Solving the problem tied to compromise’

Despite the tensions between the two countries, people’s freedom to use civilian flights cannot be obstructed and flight security cannot be compromised, said former Deputy Foreign Minister Mayilian.

"Even Azerbaijan backed away from its own statements threatening to attack civilian flights," he said. "President Sarkisian, who will be the first passenger, will deliver the news of the first flight from the airport safely."

Manvel Sargsian, the first representative from Karabakh in Armenia and the director of the Armenian Center of National and International Studies, told the Daily News that the Baku government’s reaction was too harsh.

For a solution to the Karabakh problem to be achieved, it must be tied to a compromise between Armenia and Azerbaijan, said Sargsian.

"Foreign interference is of no use," he added.


/Hurriyet Daily News/
URL: http://www.today.az/news/regions/85716.html

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