Euro-reporters.com, Belgium
July 2 2005
Nagorno Karabakh again
Written by Brussels journalist David Ferguson
Saturday, 02 July 2005
“There is no alternative to a peaceful solution. In fact there is an
urgent need to solve the conflict in order to end the personal,
economic and social suffering on both sides,” says Swedish MP Göran
Lennmarker, who, in 2002, was appointed OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
Special Representative on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
The armed spat that broke out between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis
in the dying days of the Soviet Union, leaving 30,000 dead, is far
from frozen according to Lennmarker. “Several people are killed along
the line-of-contact every year,” says the Swede. By the time a
ceasefire was brokered in 1994, the conflict had left territories
occupied and over a million displaced people in miserable conditions
on both sides.
Lennmarker was speaking yesterday in Washington at the OSCE’s
Parliamentary Assembly annual session. His report on Nagorno Karabakh
vied, together with documents on the Akhaz and Transnistrian
conflicts, and a host of other issues, for the attention of 800
participants, including almost 300 parliamentarians from the 55
participating states. Thirty years after its foundation by the
Helsinki Final Act in 1975, OSCE parliamentarians are also discussing
the organization’s future and attempting to gain greater
accountability from the OSCE headquarters in Vienna.
A draft resolution also up for discussion in Washington, proposed by
Azerbaijan MP Sattar Safarov, notes that the conflict “has led to the
occupation of 20% of the territories of Azerbaijan, including the
Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent districts by the Armenian
armed forces and [the] flow of about one million refugees and
internally displaced people…” Safarov’s proposed resolution calls
for Armenia to withdraw military forces from “all occupied
territories of Azerbaijan” and urges “Armenia to stop the
continuation of the settlement of civilian population in the occupied
territories of Azerbaijan, which can impede the peaceful solution of
the conflict.”
Appointed OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Special Representative on the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict in June 2002, Lennmarker still remains
optimistic of the chances for a peace settlement and talks of ‘golden
opportunities’ and ‘win-win concepts’. Lennmarker says OSCE
parliamentarians from Armenia and Azerbaijan have also contributed to
dialogue. “Once a peace agreement has been finalized by the two
Governments, the parliamentary dimension becomes invaluable in
informing the public and in ensuring the implementation. It is of
utmost importance that networks of Members of Parliaments already
exist and stand ready to take on these tasks.”
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