"Nagorno-Karabakh dispute still seems far from a solution"

Richard Weitz, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC based think-tank, believes that the Minsk Group negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict “remain deadlocked”.

“Although all the parties publicly agree that the dispute must be resolved on the basis of the Helsinki Principles, they disagree how to reconcile the conflicting core values of territorial integrity versus the right of self-determination”, Mr. Weitz said in an interview with APA’s Washington DC correspondent.

The Washington analyst argued that, despite many efforts by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as international mediators in the form of the OSCE Minsk group, the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute still seems to be far from a solution.

While valuing the 2010 negotiations over the conflict, Mr. Weitz reminded that during the night on June 18-19, 2010, the most serious cease-fire violation in recent years occurred along the Line of Contact.

“Armenia launched an attack during the night of June 20 on Azerbaijani positions in Fizuli, killing one Azerbaijani serviceman. The Minsk Group condemned the incident, saying that it represented “an unacceptable violation of the 1994 Cease-Fire Agreement and was contrary to the stated commitment of the sides to refrain from the use of force or the threat of the use of force.” Minister Saudabayev entrusted his Personal Representative, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, whose mandate he extended on assuming office, to work closely with the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to prevent further such incidents”.

In addition, the analyst believes that the problem is related to the issue of normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations.

“Both Azerbaijan and Turkey seek to link this process to the Karabakh issue, implying progress in the latter may be a precondition for the ratification of the Turkish-Armenian protocols in the Turkish Parliament. Meanwhile, representatives of the co-chairs stress that these two processes are independent, although they recognize that progress in one of them would also help progress in the other,” he added.


/APA/