Third Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum devoted to
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to take place in Vienna
2009-03-08 13:57:00
ArmInfo. The International Alert organization will hold the third
Armenian- Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum on the topic "Security:
Challenges and Opportunities, and Mechanisms for Building Confidence"
in Vienna on March 24-27. The discussions will be devoted to the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, International Alert Projects Manager Eurasia
Programme Dessislava Roussanova told ArmInfo.
She pointed out that there are going to be two main issues that will be
discussed: the issue of growing insecurity in the region, and possible
mechanisms and measures to build confidence between Armenian and
Azerbaijani societies.
According to Roussanova, in the course of last years, and particularly
in the past months after the summer of 2008, the organization has been
monitoring very closely the perceptions of the population from all
sides of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict divide concerning different
aspects of security. There is one prevailing view among many Armenians
and Azerbaijanis – this is the view that a profound lack of trust
between the societies involved in the disputes in the Caucasus is a
main reason for the growing sense of insecurity, fear and threat that
people experience. But there is also a shared sense among the
populations that developing more trust between societies can be the
only real guarantor for reaching peace and stability.
At the Forum, the Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations, as well as some
international actors, will be discussing ideas and proposals for
measures and initiatives that could help the process of confidence
building between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Although the sessions
of the Forum will be taking place behind closed doors all agreed final
ideas and recommendations will be made available to the
public after the Forum. The participants in the Forum will be overall
36 Armenian and Azerbaijani experts and civil society leaders.
Furthermore, there is going to be significant participation of experts
and civil society leaders from Nagorno-Karabakh.
This is the Third Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum. The previous
two were in May 2008 in Istanbul and in October 2008 in Brussels.
"These events are taking place in the framework of
International Alert’s long term initiatives aiming to support peaceful
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. As you know we are one of
these organisations that have been working in the Caucasus for almost
20 years now. Otherwise we work in 24 other regions in the world that
have been affected by conflicts. We have many global initiatives as
well. But the South Caucasus has been always one of our priorities",-
she said.