DARTMOUTH GROUP PROJECTS CREATES A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE PACKAGE AND STEP- BY-STEP PLANS OF KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

YEREVAN, MARCH 29. ARMINFO. The project of package agreement creates a
bridge bridge between the package and step-by-step plans of Karabakh
conflict settlement, stated today the Co-Chairmen of the Dartmouth
Conference Workgroup, Harold Sonders and Vitaly Naumkin.

Harold Sonders noted that the agreement, arranged by the Azerbaijan,
Armenia and Karabakh representatives in the Dartmouth Conference,
provides for two stages of settlement. At the first stage atmosphere
of mutual comprehension and trust must be created. At the second
stage the more important steps must be done. Determination of the
official international status of Karabakh is one of the main terms
of the agreement.

In order to create the atmosphere of trust, the co-chairs of the
working group suggest to restore communication, economic and cultural
cooperation. According to Vagharshak Haroutiunian, former RA Defense
Minister, and Representative of the Armenian publicity, restoration
of communications means restoration of railroad communication between
Nakhijevan and Baku against unblocking borders of NKR. “Not a single
point of the document states that NKR should return the regions
under its control against unblocking of its borders by Azerbaijan,”
he emphasized.

Russian co-chair Vitaliy Naumkin said that one shouldn’t separate
the issue of regions controlled by NKR from those of NKR controlled
by Azerbaijan. The co-chairs suggest to chose the regions where
the current problems cross to return the refugees and elaborate
reintegration mechanisms in the second stage of the peaceful
settlement. Academician Lenser Aghalovian emphasized that according
to the statistics only 320 thousand Azeries lived in the territories
around NKR, as of 1991, and not 1 million as the official Baku
represents at present. While the number of the Armenian refugees totals
to 500 thousand. They left 110 thousand apartments in Azerbaijan.