DO WE NEED COOPERATION?
Lusine Musayelyan

KarabakhOpen
11-12-2007 11:35:14

Recently the Armenian society has been dissatisfied with cooperation
between the NGOs of Karabakh and Azerbaijan. They say, however,
that Karabakh should start participating in the talks for settlement.

Presently there are no official contacts between Karabakh and
Azerbaijan. In addition, the Azerbaijani politicians and journalists
do not miss a chance to note that Armenia is a foe, and Karabakh is
an indivisible part of Armenia. Due to this policy, the Azerbaijani
society is unaware of the real situation in Karabakh, and the gap
between the two publics is growing. For them conciliation is return
of Karabakh.

The mediators who are interested in a peace settlement say without
building confidence between the sides it is impossible to consider
an agreement.

Consequently, it is first necessary to improve the climate. The
NKR government agrees to this and does not bar the NGOs from joint
programs financed by international organizations. Moreover, the
representatives of these organizations meet with the NKR government
and agree on cooperation.

This process gives rise to various reactions. Some people call
those who cooperate with Azerbaijanis masons, others refer to them as
Jehovah’s witnesses, and yet others refer to them as traitors. Internet
forums are full of discussions of the "behavior" of these people. In
personal and political competition the argument "they cooperate with
Azerbaijan" is used to defeat the opponent.

Do we need cooperation?

We asked this question to people who take part in joint programs or
are against contacts.

Albert Voskanyan was the deputy chair of the Commission for Search
and Exchange of POWs and Hostages during the war. Now he is also
the chair of the Civic Action Center NGO, which cooperates with
Azerbaijani organizations.

"We were criticized when during the war we cooperated with the
Azerbaijanis. However, thanks to cooperation we exchanged bodies,
hundreds of hostages returned home. I think shortsighted people are
against contacts or people who got such orders. I believe that we need
contacts with the Azerbaijanis, and not only through the NGOs. I have
contacts with some Azerbaijani organizations and I see they are ready
for cooperation. I have a relaxed attitude toward this, because we
should not draw an iron curtain and take no interest in what is going
on in the neighboring country. We need contacts, they should arrive
in Karabakh to see that people live here like in all the other normal
countries. There is no war in Karabakh and people are not starving."

In one of her programs Mary Davidyan, journalist for the Public
Television of Artsakh, touched upon this issue. The impression was
that Mary Davidyan was trying to persuade that the NGOs financed
by international organizations which cooperate with Azerbaijan pose
threat to NKR.

In an interview with Karabakh-Open.com Mary Davidyan said: "Contacts
are needed, the question is the level of these contacts. If there
are no political and official contacts yet, they could be set up
through NGOs. But even these contacts should not be personified,
they should be transparent and open to everyone. A representative
of an NGO should have the right in terms of ideology, maturity to be
authorized to represent the interests of the country.

I agree that we need contacts. After all, we are neighbors and one
day we will get reconciled and become friends. Although, personally
I am not ready for contacts with the representatives of this nation,
emotionally."

The NKR foreign ministry says the NKR government and the NGOs uphold
cooperation between the NGOs of both countries since Karabakh
acknowledges the importance of this cooperation for getting over
hostility and setting up friendly relations to reach a lasting
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. At the same time, the
Karabakh side urges the Azerbaijani activists not to cause harm
because after visiting Karabakh they often undergo pressure from
different government agencies and pseudo patriots in Azerbaijan
where the anti-Armenian campaign has been raised to the level of
a government policy, and become participants of this campaign,
questioning the expediency of efforts to build confidence.