Yerevan—Today the Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) hosted a round-table discussion entitled “Karabakh Movement: success formula.” Among the invitees were experts, political analysts, public activists, media representatives and others.

ACNIS founding President Raffi K. Hovannisian took part in the seminar.

ACNIS Executive Director Karapet Kalenchyan opened the discussion. He said: “Taking a retrospective look from the distance of three decades on the Artsakh movement, firts of all, everybody wants to understand what the Movement’s Success Formula was and why that extraordinary experience didn't stimulate our society’s state-building potential and capabilities in subsequent years. Today's discussion is an attempt to clarify these issues as rigorously as possible.”

Director of ACNIS Research Programs, political analyst and political expert Manvel Sargsyan and Civilitas Foundation Publicist Tatul Hakobyan presented the main reports.

Reflecting the unresolved lessons of the Karabakh Movement, Manvel Sargsyan noted that any meaningful phenomenon of public and political significance, and particularly the 88th Movement experience, is important in further application and achievement of similar successes. According to the political scientist, in our modern history the Movement is the only example when the issue has been formulated and solved. «The success was based on two main factors—the right questioning and methodology of struggle. If these two are correctly chosen and the purpose is clear, then successis guaranteed. The process of the 88 was an open constitutional movement under the flag of the «Reconstruction» declared by Mikhail Gorbachev. The democratically-driven national liberation struggle was going from bottom to the top with the use of petitions, hunger strike, peaceful disobedience, ultimatum, and other constitutional elements,» said the rapporteur.

In his report, Tatul Hakobyan, in the context of the proposals submitted by the OSCE Minsk Group mediators, detailed the developments related to the independence of the NKR and the negotiation process. Analyzing all the segments of the negotiations, Hakobyan reminded that in 1991, August's «putch» played a positive role in terms of the pro-Armenian process of the Artsakh issue, as L. Ter-Petrosyan defended B.Yeltsin's anti-Soviet movement, while Azerbaijan's President Mutalibov's sympathy was on the side of the»putch». “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Karabakh issue was internationalized, and the first step was the step-by-step and package version of the issue, in which Artsakh should return the liberated 7 regions of Azerbaijan, except for the Lachin corridor, and the status of NKR would be left uncertain. The well-known forces did not accept it, becoming the reason for Ter-Petrosyan’s resignation. After that, when Robert Kocharyan was already in power, Russian Federation’s Prime Minister Y.Primakov presented to the parties the idea of the “Common State”. That proposal and other options of the OSCE Minsk Group, Key West, the Prague Process, the Madrid Principles, and others were denied by Azerbaijan,” stressed the rapporteur.

Both reports have resulted in a lively question-and-answer session and exchange of opinions with active participation of Karapet Rubinyan, a member of the initiative group for the “For the sake of the state of Armenia”, AIISA expert Armen Vardanyan, MP Sasun Mikayelyan, publicist Marine Petrosyan, President of “Collaboration for Democracy” NGO Stepan Danielyan, Editor of Detector.am Edgar Vardanyan, Member of the “United Armenians” NGO’s Council Azat Arshakyan, public figure Emil Abrahamyan, publicist Hrayr Ulubabyan and others.