news.az, Azerbaijan
May 1 2010

‘We need to bring human element into settlement process’
Sat 01 May 2010 | 08:58 GMT Text size:

Irina Ghaplanyan News.Az Irina Ghaplanyan, University of Cambridge,
Graduate Student, Politics and International Studies.

Do you expect progress in the Karabagh settlement during this year?

Unfortunately, I do not foresee any progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh
settlement this year mainly due to the upcoming parliamentary
elections in November in Azerbaijan. Mutual concessions is what it
takes for the settlement to move forward, but none of the political
parties participating in the elections would propose any concessions
as they would lose political dividends in the eyes of their
constituents.

There is an opinion that representatives of culture and youth can do
even more in the Karabagh settlement than politicians. Do you think
that intensification of such visit’s exchanges can create more
positive atmosphere between Azerbaijanis and Armenians?

Undoubtedly. The NK process is politically `overdosed’ and largely
exhausted. We constantly hear military rhetoric from Azeri
politicians, but I doubt that they will send their sons to risk their
lives for the war that they are advocating. Moreover, this rhetoric
deepens the distrust that Armenians in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh
have towards Azerbaijan’s leaders. We need to bring the human element
into the settlement process, and this is exactly why members of youth
and culture organizations must get involved. Through interaction with
each other the youth of both nations will realize that the enemy that
the political discourse in each respective country paints, is actually
a fellow human being with largely the same social and economic
problems. The injection of human element in this process is crucial,
as it will not only offer more avenues for communication, but also
ensure that military rhetoric would gradually become unpopular and
through this process you create an environment for the empowerment of
civil society.

Catholicos Garegin II participated at an inter-religious summit in
Baku on April 26th, it was his first visit to Azerbaijan. Do you share
hopes that this visit and dialog can bring the two nations together?

Yes, I hope that this dialog will not be a one time but a recurring
event. All religions share some basic humane principles, of which
crucial in the case of NK settlement are the value of human life and
the significance of compromise. So I do believe that religious
leaders, carrying the respective authorities in their countries and
advocating peaceful resolution of the NK conflict, indeed could
positively influence the peace process.

Garegin II and leader of Azeri Muslims A.Pashazadeh supported a dialog
between religious leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Both sides say
that the Karabakh conflict has no religious base. Anyway what kind of
role can play religious leaders in the settlement?

Indeed, the NK conflict is largely of ethnic base. Now, we can
exacerbate the conflict by accentuating the religions differences, but
it is really encouraging to witness the exact opposite process,
whereby the religious leaders engage in a discourse of commonality,
which advocates that, indeed, any religion preaches peace. And this is
exactly the role that, hopefully, the religious leaders will adopt and
preach what they are called to preach ` that is, peace.

W.W.
News.Az