By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

Today, it is very important for people of Azerbaijan and Armenia, apart from the leaderships of the two countries, to join their efforts to accelerate the early settlement of the long standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In this connection, the First General Assembly of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Civil Peace Platform was held in Tbilisi on October 30.

During the Assembly, its participants appealed to the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

The issue on the agenda was the establishment of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Civil Peace Platform on the basis of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform and adoption of its Charter.

Based on the Charter, the decisions were made regarding the number of the members of the Steering Committee and the Central Control-Inspection Commission of the Civil Peace Platform, as well as their representation principles and members.

The Congress decided to create the Steering Committee of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Civil Peace Platform from the representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group states mediating in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between the two countries.

Thus, the proportion of members of the Steering Committee consisting of 19 members is determined as follows: five from Azerbaijan and Armenia each and nine from each of the other Minsk Group participating countries.

At the end, the Final Decision and Statement of the General Assembly were adopted. The Assembly decided to open offices of the Platform in Tbilisi, Yerevan and Baku and hold public meetings in Azerbaijan and Armenia.

After the General Assembly was closed, the new Steering Committee held its first meeting.

At the meeting, in accordance with the Charter of the Platform, the co-chairing institute was established and Rovshan Rzayev from Azerbaijan and Rafael Isakhanyan from Armenia were elected as the co-chairs of the Steering Committee for one year.

Then the Steering Committee presented for discussions a list of the Experts Council of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Civil Peace Platform. Following the voting, the Expert Council consisting of 29 people was approved.

The decisive process of bringing together the people of Azerbaijan and Armenia on boosting the settlement of the conflict started in December 2016, when the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform was founded in Baku by a group of Azerbaijani and Armenian public figures and peacekeepers. It was created to bring together representatives of civil society of the two countries for creating dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

However, this initiative was negatively perceived by the Armenian government, which started persecution of those Armenians who joined the Platform.

Despite this, many people from both Azerbaijan and Armenia and other countries continue to join the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform, created to accelerate the process of peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the people's diplomacy, and this initiative, of course, should be continued, in order to bring the desired peace to the region.