ANOTHER WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY OPENS BEFORE OSKANIAN-MAMEDIAROV MEETING
By Aghavni Harutyunian

AZG Armenian Daily
19/05/2006

It seems new developments are expected in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement or, perhaps, such an impression is being shaped at some
levels of the settlement process. Particularly, when the meeting
of foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan is being prepared,
taking the advantage of the 116th session of the CE Foreign Ministers’
Committee, Matthew Bryza, US Deputy State Secretary for European
and Eurasian Affairs, stated the following: “The sides are more than
close to coming to agreement.”

According to RFE/RL, Bryza also said that particularly, USA,
observes the coming period of few months as another opportunity
for settlement. Bryza believes that the authorities of Armenia and
Azerbaijan should display political courage to overcome the last
contradictions.

It’s noteworthy that Bryza expressed such optimism also in the course
of his visit to Yerevan after the negotiations in Rambouillet. But
his recent statements seem to be more optimistic.

At the same time, Peter Semneby, EU Special Representative to the
South Caucasus, said in the interview to the Russian Nezavisimaya
Gazeta that the conflicts of this region will not be settled without
hard work and mutual trust. Moreover, both EU and Russia, as well as
the regional countries should spare no efforts for that. But Semneby
didn’t exclude the threat of new escalation of the conflicts unless
they are unsettled.

It’s worth mentioning that at present, Mr. Semneby sees no prospects
for membership of the South Caucasus states to EU and states that
that will be hard to apply the a similar with the stability pact in
the Balkan states in our region. Though EU suggests more profound
relations to the South Caucasus states within the framework of the
EU New Neighborhood Program, it doesn’t envisage a prospect for the
membership to EU.

Besides, Semneby stated that EU is going to render financial assistance
of several hundred millions of Euros to each South Caucasus states
in 2007-2013.

Thus, if the prospect of EU membership was one of the key issues on
the settlement process of the Balkan states, EU leaves “the frozen
conflicts” in the South Caucasus to the regional states. At the same
time, the European and the American diplomats do not forget to remind
about “the notorious window of opportunity” just before the meeting
of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Though the very
sides in conflict do not make any progress in the negotiations, the
international participants of the settlement process speak of only
final settlement in their statements.