PAUL GOBLE: AALAND ISLANDS ARRANGEMENT WON’T WORK FOR NAGORNO KARABAKH

Azeri Press Agency
Feb 13 2008
Azerbaijan

Washington. Tamara Grigoryeva-APA. American political researcher
Paul Goble posted an article on "Window on Eurasia" website on Aaland
Islands Arrangement and its application to the resolution of Nagorno
Karabakh problem, APA reports.

Paul Goble mentions that almost since the Karabakh conflict began two
decades ago, outside observers have suggested that the arrangements
the League of Nations made for the Aaland Islands in the 1920s could
serve as a model for the peaceful resolution of the dispute between
Armenia and Azerbaijan.

"It maintained the territorial integrity of Finland while providing
almost unlimited autonomy to the Swedish-speaking population of this
archipelago," he writes.

Recalling the history of the Aaland Islands issue Paul Goble
underlines some positive sides of the process: "Each conflict is
unique and conflicts of Nagorno Karabakh and Aaland Islands have
differences. First, they are islands and so have a tradition of
being relatively isolated. Second, the population has long been
mono-cultural and mono-linguistic. If Karabakh is mono-ethnic now,
it is so only because of the flight of most Azerbaijanis because of
the fighting. And Aaland conflict did not lead to large number of
dead as in Nagorno Karabakh," the article says.