DIFFERENCES DEEPEN WITHIN ARMENIAN LEADERSHIP OVER KARABAKH.

Armenian prime minister Robert Kocharian told a Yerevan briefing yesterday that an Armenian Security Council session, held on January 7-8, resulted in a complete deadlock over policy regarding the Karabakh conflict. Karabakh’s president Arkady Gukasian, prime minister Leonard Petrosian, and defense minister Samvel Babaian participated in the session. They joined forces with Kocharian and the latter’s Yerevan colleagues, Defense Minister Vazgen Sarkisian and Internal Affairs and Security Minister Serge Sarkisian, in rejecting concessions advocated by Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian as well as the OSCE’s peace proposals. Kocharian suggested that Armenia’s foreign minister, Alexander Arzumanian, shared this group’s views. On this side of the divide, Kocharian and Serge Sarkisian are Karabakh natives. On the opposite side, Ter-Petrosian’s policy was supported only by parliamentary leaders and by Yerevan mayor Vano Siradeghian.

The predominant group opposed the proposals to pursue stage-by-stage negotiations and ultimately to settle for Karabakh’s autonomy within Azerbaijan. (Azg-Snark, Noyan-Tapan, January 14) Those proposals had also been turned down by Arzumanian, contradicting Ter-Petrosian’s policy, at last December’s meeting of the foreign ministers of OSCE countries. (See Monitor, December 22) In Baku meanwhile, senior presidential adviser Vafa Guluzade credited Ter-Petrosian with resisting "Karabakh hard-liners" in order to overcome Armenia’s international isolation and facilitate a political settlement. (Turan, January 13)

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