ARF Bureau representative Hakob Ter-Khachaturyan announced at the 35th General Assembly of the ARF that Nagorno-Karabakh needs an interim status.

“Artsakh should be granted an interim status, and the people of Artsakh should return to their homeland with international guarantees,” he said. At the same time, he emphasized that Dashnaktsutyun structures are currently conducting lobbying work in this direction.

“Yes, really?” would be the classics of our time, having heard the ARF members’ statement on granting Nagorno-Karabakh an interim status. Such a modest “appetite” of the ARF members is astonishing. They are not talking about the independence of Karabakh, not about the reunification of Armenia, not about turning seas from seas to seas, not about turning Baku and Istanbul into a sea of ​​blood, but they agree to grant Nagorno-Karabakh at least an “interim” status, adding that lobbying work should be carried out in this direction. A circumstance that causes surprise.

In 1997, when the first President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, agreed to the Phased Option during the negotiations, it clearly stipulated granting Karabakh an interim status, which the international community recognized. Moreover, we will not stop reminding you that the Phased Option was the only one that did not mention Azerbaijan’s right to territorial integrity.

The ARF Dashnaktsutyun members were not only against this option for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh issue but also considered it defeatist. They did not want to see Karabakh have any other status than independence and rejected any compromise steps.

“I need 500,000 and accordingly, at once,” the great combinator Ostap Bender would say when getting acquainted with Shura Balaganov. The same was the case with the ARF Dashnaktsutyun members. Moreover, for years, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun members have been advancing the thesis that the phased version of the problem settlement is nothing more than defeat, and they wanted independence “on a platter with blue borders” all at once.

By the way, there is also a statement on granting an interim status to Nagorno-Karabakh in the Madrid Principles presented later, which also resembled the phased version in its sequence of steps, but this time with much worse wording for the Armenian side, not to mention the unbalanced balance of power that emerged after 1997-98. The ARF Dashnaktsutyun members have repeatedly stated, even after the 44-day war, that they were against and continue to be against the Madrid Principles.

But now, when Karabakh is lost, when there is no longer an Armenian population there when the issue is essentially closed, suddenly, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun members have begun to enlighten their minds, and they already agree with the interim status of Nagorno-Karabakh. They agree, but no one will grant such a status anymore because there is no longer a Nagorno-Karabakh issue because there is no longer an Armenian population there.

Exactly 27-28 years ago, Levon Ter-Petrosyan warned: “If the conflict is not resolved, they will be incomparably weakened in a year or two. What we reject Today, we will ask for in the future, but we will not receive, as has happened many times in our history.” He also reminds us: “Today, as before Batumi and Alexandrapol, we are perhaps losing the last chance for a favorable solution to the Karabakh issue and the prosperity of Armenia. And for that, we will all answer to our people.”

But at that time, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun (and not only them) were making noise, trying to drown out rational speech, deceiving the people with verbosity and empty talk, with patriotic speeches and toasts. And now, when the matter has passed, suddenly, they are enlightened in hindsight.

In exactly the same way as during the first republic, when the ARF leaders only understood and realized their mistakes in hindsight, it was already too late. The modern ARF members have not yet realized their mistakes, at least they have not confessed to them, but with such speeches, they want to get what they had before, which, alas, is no longer there.

“We lost, unable to understand the course of time. Time is the most important factor in politics. Something that we could do at any moment, there is no guarantee that we can do it at the next moment. We did not feel it; our authorities did not feel that moment.” These words of Ter-Petrosyan are also worth remembering. Understanding the meaning would not hurt either.

Arman Galoyan