AMANDA PAUL: CURRENT STATUS OF NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE
Today
June 27 2011
Azerbaijan
While the Kazan Summit of the Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents did not produce any groundbreaking results, it is already
time to coordinate the basic principles of Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement, which will be the first step towards peace in the region,
Trend Expert Council member Amanda Paul believes.
"The Basic Principles have been talked about and negotiated for a
long time thereby it is time to finalize them and sign," Paul, an
expert on the South Caucasus countries, told Trend.
She said the current status is not acceptable. The summit of the
Presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia ended without reaching
an agreement on the basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
settlement, but the sides mentioned the progress towards this goal,
a joint statement after the summit in Kazan said, RIA Novosti reported.
The Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Dmitry Medvedev of Russia
and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia discussed the basic principles of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement on Friday in Kazan.
"The Heads of State highlighted the achievement of mutual understanding
on a number of issues, the solution of which contributes to creating
conditions to approve the basic principles," said the statement.
The document says that the meeting participants reviewed the activities
conducted to agree upon the project of basic principles.
"While the security concerns of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians are
important it nevertheless cannot be used forever to justify the
on-going occupation of seven other Azerbaijani regions and continued
displacement of their populations," Paul said.
She underscored that a cycle of elections will be launched both in
the countries of the Minsk Group and in Armenia and Azerbaijan it
is very important to maintain the momentum and quickly follow this
summit up with further such meetings.
"The optimal is to get the Basic Principles signed by the end of
this year. Part of this process will be starting to prepare the
two societies for the concessions that will be required in order to
reach and deal. For their part the international community needs to
keep the conflict high on the agenda and continue to cajole the two
leaders to make progress," she believes.
Paul does not believe the lack of progress at Kazan will necessarily
increase tensions on the Line of Contact, "where tensions already
run quite high".
"While I strongly believe that neither Azerbaijan or Armenia desires
renewed war, and have both managed to "contain" their sabre-rattling
and ceasefire violations over the last few years, it is obvious
that the longer this goes on for, the more likely war by accident is
because the risk of an violation spiraling out of control is growing,"
she said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Today
June 27 2011
Azerbaijan
While the Kazan Summit of the Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents did not produce any groundbreaking results, it is already
time to coordinate the basic principles of Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement, which will be the first step towards peace in the region,
Trend Expert Council member Amanda Paul believes.
"The Basic Principles have been talked about and negotiated for a
long time thereby it is time to finalize them and sign," Paul, an
expert on the South Caucasus countries, told Trend.
She said the current status is not acceptable. The summit of the
Presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia ended without reaching
an agreement on the basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
settlement, but the sides mentioned the progress towards this goal,
a joint statement after the summit in Kazan said, RIA Novosti reported.
The Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Dmitry Medvedev of Russia
and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia discussed the basic principles of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement on Friday in Kazan.
"The Heads of State highlighted the achievement of mutual understanding
on a number of issues, the solution of which contributes to creating
conditions to approve the basic principles," said the statement.
The document says that the meeting participants reviewed the activities
conducted to agree upon the project of basic principles.
"While the security concerns of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians are
important it nevertheless cannot be used forever to justify the
on-going occupation of seven other Azerbaijani regions and continued
displacement of their populations," Paul said.
She underscored that a cycle of elections will be launched both in
the countries of the Minsk Group and in Armenia and Azerbaijan it
is very important to maintain the momentum and quickly follow this
summit up with further such meetings.
"The optimal is to get the Basic Principles signed by the end of
this year. Part of this process will be starting to prepare the
two societies for the concessions that will be required in order to
reach and deal. For their part the international community needs to
keep the conflict high on the agenda and continue to cajole the two
leaders to make progress," she believes.
Paul does not believe the lack of progress at Kazan will necessarily
increase tensions on the Line of Contact, "where tensions already
run quite high".
"While I strongly believe that neither Azerbaijan or Armenia desires
renewed war, and have both managed to "contain" their sabre-rattling
and ceasefire violations over the last few years, it is obvious
that the longer this goes on for, the more likely war by accident is
because the risk of an violation spiraling out of control is growing,"
she said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress