Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
Feb 20 2008
Azerbaijani Public Representatives to Visit Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh
20.02.08 20:49
Azerbaijan, Baku, 20 February / Trend News corr S. Ilhamgizi / In
March 2008, the delegation including the Azerbaijani NGO
representatives, human rights activists and experts will visit
Armenia as well as the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, the Chair of the
Azerbaijani National Committee of the Helsinki Civil Assembly Arzu
Abdullayeva said to Trend.
According to Abdullayeva, the delegation will include 7-10 members –
the experts on the Nagorno-Karabakh, NGO heads, as well as the
journalists. Mainly, Nagorno-Karabakh residents will be included.
Initially, the delegation will visit Armenia, where it will
participate in the conference `Prospects for conflict settlement
within the framework of integration into Europe’, which is going to
take place in Yerevan. After the conference, the Azerbaijani
delegation will leave Armenia for Nagorno-Karabakh.
`We wanted to go to Karabakh via Azerbaijan and applied to the
Foreign Ministry for the purpose. But the Ministry stated that it was
not in its mandate and advised us to apply to the Border Troops. And
the Border Troops said that it is not expedient to visit the occupied
territory via Azerbaijan,’ she said.
According to Abdullayeva, the visit of NGO representatives to Armenia
will aim at `national diplomacy’. Its goal is to form a positive
opinion about Azerbaijan and to show a civil attitude of Azerbaijanis
to them.
`We hope that we will be able to coordinate some model for the
peaceful regulation of the conflict. We need to exchange opinions
with Armenians in this regard. We know that we can not achieve
serious progress in the first stage, but hopefully our efforts will
be success,’ the human rights activist.
He said that the meetings will be held with the ordinary Armenians
and the talks are expected to be held with the officials as well,
during the visit.
Abdullayeva said that the discussions and consultations will be held
with the representatives of government bodies, Azerbaijani parliament
and international organization, before the visit to Armenia.
From: Baghdasarian