AZG Armenian Daily #181, 08/10/2005

Karabakh issue

WILL KARABAKH GET AN INTERMEDIATE STATUS?

Regnum agency quoted Sabine Freizer, the International Crisis Group director
for South Caucasus, as saying that the ICG will soon represent its second
report to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh that puts forward 20
options for the conflict regulations. Freizer said, in particular, that the
ICG offers holding referendum among the Armenians of Karabakh and the Azeris
who are bound to return to their former homes to decide the status of the
region. “While talking about a referendum we need to be sure that Baku will
recognize its results”, she said. Freizer thinks that it is the
international community that has to set the date of the referendum and not
Armenia and Azerbaijan. The international community will assess “as to what
extent Nagorno Karabakh is a sovereign state and to what extent the
authorities of Karabakh are ready to protect national minorities”.

Freizer underscored that a solution to the conflict can be found if the
sides leave aside the status issue for now and get down to other issues.
Freizer looks optimistically at the fact that the sides understood that
“package regulation is impossible and some territories need to be returned
inviting international peacekeepers to locate there”. “That way the people
of Karabakh will get an intermediate status of independence”, she said.