AGBU EUROPE CAMPAIGN FOR KARABAKH

AZG DAILY
18-11-2009

Nagorno Karabakh

The AGBU Europe issued the following statement recently:

"It is time for the EU to support the development in Nagorno –
Karabagh and contacts between Karabagh and Azerbaijan.

AGBU Europe’s new is campaigning to press the European Union to
provide humanitarian and development assistance to Nagorno Karabakh, to
establish confidence building measures between Karabakh and Azerbaijan
and to send observers to help monitor the cease-fire.

Nagorno Karabagh has been effectively independent since it won the
war against Azerbaijan in 1994 but there is a real risk that the
war will resume. Isolated from the world by geography and politics,
the small Republic can count on no one’s help except Armenia’s.

Karabakh is reserved special treatment by the international community.

There are other non-recognized states in the region: Transdniestria,
Abkhazia or South Ossetia. These all benefit from some form of
international peacekeeping; they are involved in some form of
internationally funded projects; and their residents enjoy contacts
with the other countries. Not so Karabakh.

The European Union is not involved in policing the cease-fire, they
fund almost no development or humanitarian project there, and have
not sponsored contacts between the inhabitants of Karabakh and of
Azerbaijan. Far from frowning on Azerbaijan’s policy of boycott of
Armenia and Karabakh, the European Union has largely followed Baku’s
wishes. In fact, Karabakh is the only part of the region, which the
EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby,
has not visited.

Most people in the EU would agree that this policy is wrong. But
they are unlikely to act unless we, European citizens, tell them to
change course."