RECTOR OF BAKU SLAVONIC UNIVERSITY CONSIDERS MEETING OF AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN INTELLIGENTSIA TO BE NEW FORMAT FOR NEGOTIATIONS
TREND News Agency, Azerbaijan
s2.pl?newsId=949183&lang=EN
June 29 2007
Azerbaijan, Baku / Òrend corr S. Ilhamgizi / A meeting and joint visit
of the representatives of Azerbaijani and Armenian intelligentsia
was an attempt to establish peace and there is a hope that this
format will provide good results, the Rector of the Baku Slavonic
University, Professor Kamal Abdullah, said on 29 June. He was one of
the intellectuals who paid a visit to Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
On 28 June, by the initiative of Azerbaijani and Armenian Ambassadors
in Russia, a group of intelligentsia from the two countries, with
the assistance of OSCE, visited the Khankandi and Shusha regions of
Nagorno-Karabakh, and afterwards visited Armenia where they met with
the Armenian President Robert Kocharian. Then in Baku, the delegation
was received by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
According to Abdullah, there are coinciding viewpoints on several
issues between the Azerbaijani and Armenian intelligentsia, who
were communicating without mediators. The sides agreed upon the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. "They now already admit that
Azerbaijanis and Armenians must again live together. Now or in the
future they will face the necessity of restoring the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan. But that requires political will on the
Armenian side. The Azerbaijani President noted during the meeting
with the delegation that Azerbaijanis could not give anything more
to Armenians. Armenia should vacate Azerbaijan’s seven regions that
are under senseless occupation," he added.
Abdullah said that the representatives of the Armenian delegation
were alarmed at the possibility of war in the case that a peaceful
settlement to the conflict is not achieved.
"Ours and their wish is to resolve the conflict in a peaceful way.
For this purpose we tried to make the format produce some results,
in case peaceful opportunities are exhausted. The opportunities of the
format, however, depend on the Armenian side," the professor summed up.
–Boundary_(ID_pLQNQM4giht12Z3CkltV7Q)–