BAKU: OSCE rapporteur elaborates on Garabagh conflict report

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
July 4 2005

OSCE rapporteur elaborates on Garabagh conflict report

Baku, July 1, AssA-Irada
The international community is not ready to grant the status of
independence to Upper Garabagh, despite its aspirations, says the
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly special envoy on the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict over Upper Garabagh, Goran Lennmarker. He indicated in his
report that since numerous ethnic minorities live in the Caucasus,
`it is dangerous to divide the region into small independent states
and this is not an alternative for settling conflicts’.
The rapporteur regarded the conflict as `frozen’ due to the ongoing
casualties on the frontline and the suffering of refugees and
displaced persons. He positively assessed the ongoing peace process
within the mediating OSCE Minsk Group, the Council of Europe and
other international organizations but called on the intermediaries to
step up efforts.
Lennmarker also said that both Azeri and Armenian parliament members
should refrain from harsh statements.*