Mr. Chairman, distinguished representatives.

First may I thank for your kind words welcoming me to this Council and I am truly honored to speak before this distinguished audience today.

Mr. Chairman,

We are at this moment witness to a precariousness that is not only characteristic of certain regions of the world but of Europe as well. No one can remain a simple spectator and not feel affected by the unpredictable forces moving around us, least of all my country, the Republic of Armenia which has just turned "8". Armenia is rightly anxious to make sure that peace and cooperation in Europe, and more particularly in its own immediate region, will afford it the security and stability necessary to develop and consolidate its human and economic resources and strengthen its democratic institutions.

We believe in Europe and we believe in the OSCE as a framework for strengthening security and stability in Europe. We believe in the Euro-Atlantic cooperation and partnership structure. We have fully incorporated these into our own national security thinking. We also believe however that there should not be a hierarchy between these various elements, instead they should be complementary and serve as a consolidating framework. We believe in cooperation and regional arrangements that create the infrastructure for regional stability. Security is indivisible. However, the conditions and principles that make for security and stability are also indivisible. Justice, fairness and economic development, and most of all respect and protection of human and civil rights. These are also indivisible. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. Europe therefore, is only as prosperous, free and democratic as its poorest, its least free and the least democratic member of its community. While differences in the stages of development are inevitable, the rights of the least favored to participate in Europe's overall growth and security must be assured. The insecurity of one is a potential threat to the security of all.

It may be worth repeating these solemn and ritual principles because their pursuit and application often confront the OSCE with some awkward dilemmas. In the coming years, as conflicts and confrontations emerge within Europe's extended domain and as old frictions persist, the OSCE and participating states must come to grip with certain contradictions and tensions inherent in its current principles and values. At this moment, we do not want to presume to make concrete proposals for the resolution of these contradictions. We would like to make only certain observations which may be useful to keep in mind as this organization develops and refines the framework for its charter.

First we must distinguish between stability and the forced maintenance of the status quo. Conflating the two is neither wise nor practicable in the long run. A status quo in political life is never inherently permanent and a viable policy of stability requires a mechanism to pursue an evolutionary, dynamic process of managing change. A dormant volcano is not always a dead volcano. We have new and dynamic challenges to the status quo. We should not be shy to address these challenges creatively and objectively to conceive more adaptive answers than falling back in a comfortable, yet dangerously elusive status quo.

Second, the monitoring and anticipation of emerging conflicts can only lead to effective prevention if we have enough alternate instruments, besides techniques of peacekeeping, for freezing a given situation into a status quo. To be credible, our interventions must design means for reconciling competing claims to legitimacy and political expression.

As usual it is easier for those whose national aspirations are already fulfilled to transcend them into transnational, co-operative, integrative institutions. As we know, it has not always been so. It took multiple "nationalist" confrontations to bring part of Europe to its senses. Thus, while some parts of Europe are integrating with countries secure in their statehood and fulfilled in their national aspirations, other parts are disintegrating, with people trying to achieve independent statehood or clinging to their vulnerable sovereignty. These people, who call themselves nations, and whom the outsiders, discomfitted by their agitations, call ethnicities, have a very different idea of stability and status quo. What is usually blamed as the evil of nationalism is no more than the manifestations of frustrated national aspirations and the urge to achieve self-determination, without which security seems elusive to them.

A few words about Armenia's perception of its own security, or rather its perceived threats to its security. Our geographic position and our long history have greatly contributed to our desire to define our security needs in terms which take into account very carefully the behavior and the intentions of our immediate neighbors. The actions and declarations of certain of our neighbors, not only towards us, but in the region as a whole, give us a pause and often cause for concern if not alarm. Our own resources are objectively speaking no match to the size, strength or military capabilities of our neighbors with whom our recent history has had a tragic dimension. We would rather move from a position of anxious insecurity to one of positive, gradual and constructive engagement and resolve our differences through diplomatic dialogue and economic and regional cooperation. However, it is difficult to engage those who maintain their refusal to formalize diplomatic relations with my country.

We look at our security not only bilaterally, but also regionally in the broader European context. We are convinced that in the long run, our national security must be anchored in regional stability. While there are multiple conflicts affecting and afflicting the peace and stability of our region, we are understandably ready to help resolve the conflict that affects us most, the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict. It is clear to us that the peaceful resolution of this conflict will permit to strengthen the region's stability and Armenia's development. With this in mind, we remain committed to all ongoing OSCE sponsored efforts pursued through the Minsk Group and its co-chairmen. While the guns have fallen silent, our willingness to help create a positive movement in the Minsk group process has already been communicated.
It is important to see the Karabagh conflict from the security perspective of those whose national aspirations have been denied and trampled for too long. It is equally important to bear in mind that Karabagh's claim to independence is fully warranted under international law and the applicable Soviet laws that provided the framework for the Soviet republics to declare their independence in 1991 and thus secure formal recognition by the international community. Under these laws, in opting for independence, those republics which included autonomous units had to conduct referenda in each unit separately, as the people in these units had been granted the constitutional right to determine whether or not they wished to remain in the Union. When the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan declared independence, it did so without any representation from Karabagh, nor did Azerbaijan conduct a separate referendum in Karabagh prior to its declaration, as was required by law. Furthermore, in its declaration of independence, Azerbaijan formally reestablished its 1918-1920 independence, thus nullifying those legal acts of the Soviet era that affixed Azerbaijan's authority over Karabagh.

Our beliefs in this issue notwithstanding, in order to move the peace process forward, let me state here clearly my government's willingness to remove, as preconditions for negotiations, the demand for either independence or union with Armenia. We consider the removal of these preconditions a serious sign of our commitment to a negotiated peace. However in order for this to be consequential we believe that a similar gesture must be forthcoming from our interlocutors. We think that the international community, Europe and the OSCE through the Minsk group, must encourage a reciprocal posture, a symmetry, whereby Azerbaijan would declare its willingness to remove as precondition to talks, its own insistence on an autonomous status for Nagorno Karabagh along traditional lines. Complex and extraordinary situations necessitate innovative, flexible and unconventional solutions in which new forms of statal configurations permit the reconciliation of seemingly irreconcilable principles and political interests.

It is here that the Minsk group and through it, the OSCE can chart new territory and design adaptive and effective structures and expand the repertoire of its conflict resolution tools. The rewards for a successful construct in resolving the Karabagh issue cannot be overestimated. It is clear to us that its architecture may have relevance in dealing with similarly engendered conflicts across the OSCE's vast domain.

For us, peace in Nagorno Karabagh is of course the promise of transforming a situation of hostility and confrontation with our neighbor Azerbaijan into one of cooperation and mutually reinforced security. We would like to think of the day when Karabagh is transformed from being a chasm separating our countries to being a bridge built for the benefit of all the populations concerned.

The upholding and promotion of the fundamental values and principles enshrined in the OSCE documents and its emerging charter will undoubtedly play a further role in strengthening cooperation and stability in the region beyond the mere establishment of peace in Karabagh. The strengthening of democratic institutions and the protection of human and civil rights in each country in the region must become the foundation that holds together the regional security space. Regional arrangements between states committed to democracy and the rule of law are more likely to result in the kind of dynamic equilibrium for lasting stability. For its part, Armenia is committed to further democracy at home by working consistently on improving its own constitutional processes and the guarantee of individual rights though the rule of law. For all this, it is important to dare to think broadly and not be confined in a Cold War mentality.

Finally a word about history. It is often said that a slavish attachment to history and an unreconstructed replay of historical memory are incapacitating traits afflicting certain peoples. It is said that these traits must be overcome if peaceful progress is to be achieved between former enemies or currently hostile and feuding neighbors. There is a certain inequity in the way certain mature democracies in Europe and elsewhere refer to these peoples as trapped by their history, as if, a long memory were a form of congenital incapacitation. No nation can escape its history entirely, it can only transcend it. But to transcend it, two conditions must prevail. One, a country must confront its history, both internally and in relation to others. Second, those others, outside its borders, who as participants and actors have shaped that history, they must also jointly confront theirs. There is no national history in a vacuum. For France and Germany, England and France, the U.S. and Japan, in order to transcend their histories of conflict, war and hatred, they had to transcend the past together. This process is not yet completed in many parts of Europe. In still other parts, the process hasn't even begun.

We Armenians are often told to forget our history, even our recent history. We are told to forget the past and look at the future. If I may borrow the appropriate distinction made by Albert Camus to a German friend, to forgive is not the same as to forget. To forget is neither feasible nor always very wise. It devalues the national experience that underlies so much of national identity, no matter how painful or glorious. To forgive and to be forgiven are equally necessary. Yet, it is difficult to forgive those who do not believe they need to be forgiven. To ask for forgiveness, one must at least recognize a mistake, admit to an injustice or a misdeed. Perhaps contrition is too strong a word; it is not a word in the realm of international political discourse and it is better left to the guardians of our individual souls. But admission of an act of grave and deliberate abuse of the human rights and lives of another people, is the least one can do to reestablish the balance and transcend history. Armenians, as a nation who survived a genocide, are willing to forgive and to move on. We are hopeful that the day would come soon when the people with whom we have shared a long history are themselves ready to own up to the truth of their own history. Then and only then, can we move on together and build our regional cooperation and security arrangements on sound bases of trust and respect.

These thoughts about Armenia are not based on any idea of national exceptionalism. Every country`s history is unique, but no one's history is truly exceptional. It is therefore our conviction that these observations have a relevance for situations across many continents, multiple cultures, several political systems and a multitude of national experiences. The OSCE can and must be instrumental in doing all it can to help history move forward, and find ways to help old adversaries transcend together their troublesome past. Real progress in this situation cannot be achieved by forcing an artificial consensus when my country continues to believe that its divergent position from that of the majority is grounded in legitimate concerns.

Perhaps there are some among the distinguished representatives here, in this council, who may dismiss my comments as the wishful utopianism of a small country lost in the Transcaucasian quagmire, a utopianism dressed as political philosophy. May I remind them however that in the last 50 years or so, in Europe alone, the idealism and generosity of spirit of a George Marshall, or a Jean Monet or of Vaclav Havel proved to be far more realistic and effective than cynical "realism". Far more conducive to cooperation and stability then the "realism" of the uncritical but faithful practitioners of realpolitik who have elevated an essentially narrow and limited instrument of politics into an exalted principle.

Thank you.