Authoritative British “Guardian” daily published the article of commentator, Alexanderos Peterson in its 7 June number, AzerTag informs. The article says that the meeting of Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President, Serj Sarkisian was held in Saint-Petersburg with the participation of co-chairs to the OSCE Minsk Group on the solution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, on June 6. Mass media estimated this meeting as a positive and constructive event.
The author writes that after the USSR collapse, Armenian armed forces occupied Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh territory and its 7 surrounding regions. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is identified as a “frozen conflict”. No progress has been gained yet in the solution of this hard conflict.
The article states although the separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh considers it an independent state, it cannot maintain its existence without Armenia’s aid and all the occupied territories are internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territories.
The author, especially emphasizing that Nagorno-Karabakh has been unrestrictedly militarized and has gone out of control, writes that the territory turned into a source of transnational threats. Not only the threats to the citizens of region, but also to European countries. Besides, this situation offers ground for illegal drug and human traffic, as well as money laundering, spread of organized crime and so on. As the NATO forces struggle against transnational threats in Afghanistan, the European Union should make every effort to overcome such threats in the nearby region.
Meeting of the presidents in Saint-Petersburg raises hope for the conflict solution. After S.Sarkisian was elected a president, mass protests accompanied with violence took place in his country. So, it is believed that he will be more open than his predecessor, R.Kocharian, in the negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
Military budget of Azerbaijan, wealthy with oil, has recently exceeded even the whole Armenian budget. Besides, strengthening its defence power, Azerbaijan takes at the same time successive measures to improve social condition of its more than 1 million citizens who turned into the internally displaced due to the conflict.
The author reminds that France, one of the co-chairs to the OSCE Minsk Group, should work out a European action plan for peaceful solution to the conflict.
France will be the next in chair to the European Union. From this point of view, official Paris should include the issue connected with the conflict solution to the EU agenda.
A.Peterson writes that Europe should learn a lesson from the Balkan conflict and shouldn’t allow analogous incidents to take place. Besides, to continue keeping an indefinite and dangerous status-quo of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict shouldn’t be allowed either. Europe should understand that indifferent attitude to the conflict existing its neighborhood means increase of transnational threats.
AzerTAg
