By Lusine Avanesyan

“We have always stated that Nagorno-Karabakh must have a status, but we do not see this status apart from Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated yesterday.

In the negotiations for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict our neighbors’ trump card is the fact that Azerbaijan became a UN member with Nagorno-Karabakh as part of it. All the states, including the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Nonetheless, a Declaration adopted by Azerbaijan (a UN-member) on August 30, 1991, states that the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan of 1918-1920 was re-established in Azerbaijan. Thus, the new independent state declared itself a legal successor to Musavat Azerbaijan of 1918-1920. Speaking of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity now, our neighbors forget all about that fundamental document.

Knowing the “blind spots” of history, however, helps reveal the implications of this seeming forgetfulness. How can they in Azerbaijan remember that modern-day Azerbaijan is successor to a state that had no definite borders, without Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhichevan and Zangezur being part of it? In the last case, our neighbor is still laying claims.

According to the international norms in effect at that time, those were disputable territories. Evidence thereof is the proceedings of the Paris Assembly of the League of Nations, when the newly formed Transcaucasian republics were admitted to the League of Nations.

Also, both the agreements signed during the first years of the Soviet state and Bolsheviks’ statements prove that. According to historical documents, Azerbaijan’s claims to the neighboring territories once proved to be an obstacle to its admission to the League of Nations. In December 1920, the organ of the League of Nations that considered the issue of Azerbaijan’s admission, unanimously voted against, as Azerbaijan’s border disputes with Georgia and Armenia did not allow the organization to be properly informed of whether Azerbaijan’s borders had been finally fixed or not. So when Azerbaijani officials state that Azerbaijan joined the UN with Nagorno-Karabakh being part of it, they should specify which Azerbaijan they mean: if it is the successor to the Musavat Azerbaijan of 1918-1920, Nagorno-Karabakh was not part of it then. Therefore, the state of Azerbaijan that was admitted to the UN in 1991 was to be admitted without Nagorno-Karabakh as part of it.