Armenia Set to Compromise, Premier Says

Armenian Prime Minister Armen Darbinyan said Tuesday that his country is prepared to forgo its demands for the immediate independence or annexation of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in an effort to break a diplomatic impasse with neighboring Azerbaijan.

“We are ready not to consider Karabakh now as a part of Armenia. We are ready not to consider independence for Karabakh now,” Darbinyan said in an interview with The Times in Washington, where he is attending the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund. “We are ready to do this because we want negotiations.”

But Darbinyan noted that any relationship worked out between Azerbaijan and Karabakh “has to be horizontal, not vertical”--implying that Armenia is not yet willing to see the region become a fully integrated part of Azerbaijan. The Armenian-majority enclave has been geographically inside Azerbaijan since Soviet map makers redrew the area.

Control of Karabakh has been a matter of dispute between the two countries for a decade. A sporadic insurgency eventually broke out into full-scale conflict, claiming more than 35,000 lives before being suspended in 1994 with a shaky cease-fire that has held since.

The United States, Russia and France have tried to mediate the dispute but have made little headway. The U.S. and other Western nations have advocated a plan that would give Armenians in Karabakh considerable autonomy within Azerbaijan. But Armenia has long rejected any formula that gives Azerbaijan control over the region.

Armenia’s former president, Levon A. Ter-Petrosyan, was effectively forced from office earlier this year after hinting he might be prepared to agree to a compromise.

While Darbinyan’s insistence on a “horizontal relationship” appears to leave little room for diplomatic maneuvering, the tone of his remarks suggests a desire to search for possible common ground.

Darbinyan, who met with President Heydar A. Aliyev of Azerbaijan in a rare session last month in that country’s capital, Baku, said he believes that there is sufficient goodwill to resolve the issue. This, coupled with an expected Aliyev victory in national elections next weekend in Azerbaijan, could create the conditions needed to move forward, he said.

“The prospects and the will for a political solution will increase, because the power of any newly elected leader is greater,” he said.

The inability to resolve the dispute over Karabakh has hurt Armenia economically, disrupting trade and precluding direct participation in the petroleum windfall now starting to unfold in the Caspian Sea region.

More recently, Moscow’s financial turmoil has buffeted Armenia, which sends roughly 40% of its exports to Russia.