Baltic News Service
June 13, 2005
INTL COMMUNITY SHOULD BE MORE INVOLVED IN SOLVING MOUNTAIN KARBAKH
CONFLICT — LITHUANIA’S PARLT CHAIR
VILNIUS, Jun 13
Lithuania could encourage the international community to increase
its involvement in solving the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict over the
Mountain Karabakh region.
This idea was voiced at a press conference at the parliament on
Tuesday by Parliamentary Speaker Arturas Paulauskas, who had been
paying an official visit to South Caucasus countries last week.
“Only rendering the solution of this problem international can bring
around some improvement. This might be an international mission,
international observers. Obviously, today the two countries are
unable to reach the right solution,” Paulauskas said and added that
a concrete position may be formulated after a meeting with Foreign
Minister Antanas Valionis.
Valionis has been delegated to the government by the New Union (the
Social Liberals) led by the parliamentary speaker.
There is an ongoing military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia
over Mountain Karabakh, a large Azerbaijan region dominated by ethnic
Armenians. The 1988-1994 war over the disputed territory claimed the
lives of over 35,000 people. There is only a fragile truce between
Armenia and Azerbaijan at the front line in Mountain Karabakh, still
occupied by Armenia.
Paulauskas told the press conference that the initiative of cooperation
with Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia under formula 3+3, involving
Latvia and Estonia might offer some prospects.
“I saw that this project needed support. This might not happen today,
but this project is prospective,” he said.
Having become a full-fledged member of the EU and NATO last year,
Lithuania is seeking to convey its experience of Euro-Atlantic
integration to South Caucasus countries, however so far only Azerbaijan
and Georgia have declared pro-western orientation.
Armenia tends to relate its future with Russia, which has established
military bases in the country.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress