International experts challenge Azerbaijan to enter talks with Karabakh

The monitoring committee of the European Parliament and the German institute (SMP) concerned with security issues started hearings today in Berlin on the subject of frozen conflicts. As Davit Harutyunyan, president of the NA permanent committee on state-legal affairs, told a Panorama.am journalist, he was quite concerned that the positions of the sides of these conflicts has become less flexible over the years.

In his words, different models of solving conflicts were discussed at the session. Harutyunyan informs that Armen Rustamyan, a member of the Armenian delegation, the conflicts are generally inherited from the Soviet Union or other dictatorships. “In spite of that, all conflicts have their own specificity, and certain models are needed to solve each conflict,” Rustamyan said.

As informed by Harutyunyan, during the session dedicated to the Karabakh conflict, reports were read by Jonathan Cohen from the British non-government “Resources for Reconciliation” organization and Nottingham university professor Stefan Wolf. In Harutyunyan’s words, Cohen said that the societies of Armenia, Karabakh, and Azerbaijan need to be involved in solving the conflict, as a wide dialogue would lay the foundation of solving this issue. The speaker then challenged Azerbaijan to enter direct talks with Karabakh, saying that by avoiding talks with Karabakh, Azerbaijan has reached nothing to this point.

In his turn, Professor Wolf placed importance on Karabakh’s ties to the European Union, in terms of economic assistance and otherwise.

In the end, Harutyunyan stated that Azerbaijan’s continuing warlike rhetoric makes it impossible to return the territories around Karabakh now serving as a buffer zone. “Azerbaijan’s unconstructive demands made in the UN and other international organizations has made progress by the Minsk group nearly impossible,” stated Harutyunyan.