OSCE rapporteur tells Azeri agency about “growing” interest in Karabakh issue
Trend news agency
22 Feb 05
BAKU
Trend correspondent A. Raufoglu: “The objective behind preparing the
report of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly [OSCE PA] is to attract the
attention of the international community and push the conflict to the
top of the agenda,” Goran Lennmarker, the OSCE PA rapporteur on
Karabakh, has told Trend news agency.
In his view, the settlement of the conflict is taking so long “because
the international community does not have enough information regarding
the conflict, so it attracts less attention”. However, the ultimate
resolution of the conflict depends on the two sides themselves,
Lennmarker said. “I hope that the OSCE PA discussion of this issue
will speed up the resolution of the conflict,” he said.
At the same time, the rapporteur said that it is not the aim of his
mission to intervene in the work of the OSCE Minsk Group. “Like in the
PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe], the OSCE PA
report on Karabakh will be for familiarization purposes. It will state
the origins of the conflict, the current situation and prospects for
its settlement. Right now I am seriously studying the situation. I may
draw some conclusions on the basis of my observations,” Lennmarker
said.
He said that the OSCE PA has recently increased its interest in the
Karabakh issue: “This has to do with the organization’s growing
interest in the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict, since both states
closely cooperate with the OSCE”. The rapporteur declined to answer
questions about the process of settling the conflict and said that
both Armenia and Azerbaijan will benefit from its resolution. In his
opinion, the problem should be resolved “exclusively through
negotiations and peaceful means”.
“At any rate, the problem must be resolved soon, so that we could
tackle deeper problems of the South Caucasus in the future,”
Lennmarker said.