A document for history: “War or peace, time to get serious" - "Պատերազմ թէ՞ խաղաղութիւն՝ լրջանալու պահը" - Introduction

 Vaհe H Apelian 

“War or Peace, Time to get Serious” is president Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s (LTP) position paper for the resolution of the Karabagh conflict, he published on November 1, 1997, where he advocated concessions for resolving the lingering Karabagh conflict. 

LTP’s negotiating position outlined in that document created an uproar in Armenia and resulted in the palace coup engineered by Robert Kocharian, Serzh Sargsyan, Vazken Sarkissian and Vartan Oskanian leading to president LTP’s resignation a few months later, on February 3, 1998. 

In a recent posting on his Facebook page, Tatul Hagopian labelled that palace coup a political crime and wrote, “in 1997-1998, a political crime was committed in Armenia, as a result of which the historical opportunity to settle the Artsakh conflict was aborted.” (see note). From there on “Serzh Sargsyan, like Kocharyan before him, each for ten years and Pashinyan for two years, failed to act decisively. Consecutively they missed the opportunities to settle the Artsakh conflict.” (see note). 

The rest is another tragic page of the much tortured Armenian history, the loss of Artsakh. Historians will study this catastrophic loss from here and on and certainly will refer to the LTP’s historic political stand where he noted that, “Rejection of compromise and maximalism (striving to achieve the maximum and not the possible) is the shortest way to the complete destruction of Karabakh and deterioration of the situation in Armenia. It is not about giving or not giving Karabakh. It is about keeping Karabakh Armenian. It was inhabited by Armenians for 3000 years and it should be inhabited by Armenians after 3000 years.” 

History will also not exonerate president LTP from responsibility for the loss of the Mountainous Nagorno Karabagh Oblast and the depopulation of historic Artsakh from its native Armenian inhabitants. LTP was, after all, the leader of the Karabagh Committee that sounded the battle cry for unification. Instead of pursuing a negotiated settlement for the Mountainous Nagorno Karabakh, LTP let the first Karabagh war be waged under his watch, instead of resorting to negotiated settlement. The first Artsakh war ended with a ceasefire agreement (the Bishkek Protocol) between the warring parties that came into effect on 12 May 1994. The Bishkek Protocol was a ceasefire agreement, signed by the representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Republic of Mountainous Karabakh, and Russia on May 5, 1994, in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

I could not find that historic document translated into English in the internet. Consequently, I resorted to translating it in segments.  They are placed below,

Part 1 – The only option for solving the Karabakh question is compromise,'

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/10/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious_23.html

Part 2 - The path of adventurers will lead to inevitable defeat

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/10/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious_29.html

Part 3 - Five myths and  two riddles

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/11/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious.html

Part 4/4 - Our only ally is the refusal of adventure

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/11/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious_12.html

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