PanARMENIAN.Net

Main areas for confidence building initiatives between Armenia and
Azerbaijan defined
28.03.2009 12:35 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today, 27th March, the Third Armenian Azerbaijani
Public Peace Forum, that was taking place in Vienna between 24-27
March under the aegis of International Alert, came to an end. During
the 4 days of the Forum the Armenian and Azerbaijani participants
worked to develop concrete ideas and proposals for confidence building
measures that could contribute to the peaceful settlement of the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

`The Forum defined three main areas in which confidence building
initiatives and measures should be strengthened and actively
implemented. These areas are: internal work within each society, work
to initiate and support direct people-to-people contacts and work to
implement joint initiatives between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in
areas where this is possible today.’, International Alert’s
representative Dessislava Roussanova who has been mediating this
dialogue, told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

`It is a step that should be welcomed and appreciated. Many civil
society leaders across the region welcome opportunities for such
direct engagement and I hope that this engagement will continue in one
form or another in future. Experience in successful peace processes in
other places in the world, and International Alert works in 24 other
regions in the world that have been affected by conflict, show that
civil society can play very important role in peacebuilding
processes. In the Nagorno Karabakh case, it is a responsibility of the
leaders to discuss the framework for a political agreement but civil
society and the journalists could be leading the societies and start
building the bridges of trust and confidence that could bring the
societies closer to achieving peaceful settlement’, said Dessislava
Roussanova.

`With the end of the Forum today the work is just
beginning. International Alert, together with Armenian and Azerbaijani
partners is going to work on some concrete initiatives. The aim of
these initiatives is to create a platform for dialogue where civil
society leaders could discuss wide range of issues, from those that
divide the societies to those that unite Armenians and
Azerbaijanis. Then the next, 4th Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace
Forum will take place in July 2009′, said Dessislava Roussanova