Messenger.ge, Georgia
Aug 3 2004
Measured potential for peacebuilding
Azeris and Armenians in Tbilisi feel removed from their homelands’
distant conflict
By Keti Sikharulidze
Armenians and Azerbaijanis share many cultural similarities – in
music, education and cuisine. Moreover, significant segments of both
populations believe that their religious differences do not matter –
says the results of a recent sociological survey conducted by
Armenian and Azerbaijani researchers.
Another notable result of the survey is that the majority of
Azerbaijani refugees from Nagorno-Karabagh believe they can live in
peace and friendship with their Armenian neighbors.
While announcing the results last Wednesday at the Caucuses
International Center of Journalists in Tbilisi, Professor Jeffrey
Halley from the University of Texas Department of Sociology, said
that both sides are eager to support this project. “People think that
a closer social and economic relationship will help to resolve the
conflict,” he said.
“The Azerbaijani population declared that a closer economic and
military relationship would help resolve the problems. But while
Armenians think the problems will be solved only if Azerbaijan agrees
that Nagorno-Karabagh belongs to Armenia, they also declared that
Azerbaijan refugees must return to their homes,” said Professor
Halley.
As implied in its title – On the potential of the Azerbaijani and
Armenian Peoples for Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Cooperation –
the survey aimed to measure the possibility of building a closer
relationship between the people of the two countries.
Approximately 1,000 people from Azerbaijan and 1,000 from Armenia
were surveyed in 2003, as well as 200 Azeri refugees (IDPs) from
Nagorno-Karabagh and 200 Armenians currently living in that region,
which they claim as their own. Participants came from all age groups,
with the majority aged between 26 and 60.
According to the survey, both sides stressed that this conflict can
be resolved only through working together. But as Halley told
journalists, the Armenian and Azeri people blame their governments
for this conflict, although many people in both countries felt
strongly that forces beyond their government play a role in
prolonging the conflict.
Asked if the situation would change if the survey was held now in
2004 instead of 2003, the president of the Armenian Sociological
Association Roubina Ter-Martirosyan said: “We live in a dynamic
world, and if we held this survey this year the situation would
change for the better.”
Dr Sevil Asadova from Azerbaijan said that the results would not be
markedly different, and added: “We have determined how to establish
closer relations and have found the key to this problem. Our main aim
was to learn what these people thought about this problem.”
Many Azerbaijanis and Armenian’s living in Tbilisi, however, told The
Messenger that these problems are distant for them, especially since
they consider Georgia is now their homeland.
“I do not know what is happening there, we are in a vacuum and know
nothing. As it is far from me I do not feel their troubles and need,”
said market clerk Valia Avakian, whose ancestors are Armenian.
Saying that she personally could not imagine why Azerbaijan and
Armenia should have a conflict, she added her family “is more
concerned with the problems in Georgia rather than in Armenia and
Azerbaijan. I am ashamed to say so, but it is true”
An ethnic Azeri Ilgar Mamedov told The Messenger that he enjoys “very
good relations with Armenians in Georgia.”
“When we meet each other, we try not to speak about that conflict at
all to avoid embarrassment,” he said.