Main areas for confidence building initiatives between Armenia and Azerbaijan defined

PanARMENIAN.Net - Today, 27th March, the Third Armenian Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum, that was taking place in Vienna between 24-27 March under the aegis of International Alert, came to an end. During the 4 days of the Forum the Armenian and Azerbaijani participants worked to develop concrete ideas and proposals for confidence building measures that could contribute to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.



"The Forum defined three main areas in which confidence building initiatives and measures should be strengthened and actively implemented. These areas are: internal work within each society, work to initiate and support direct people-to-people contacts and work to implement joint initiatives between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in areas where this is possible today.", International Alert's representative Dessislava Roussanova who has been mediating this dialogue, told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.



"It is a step that should be welcomed and appreciated. Many civil society leaders across the region welcome opportunities for such direct engagement and I hope that this engagement will continue in one form or another in future. Experience in successful peace processes in other places in the world, and International Alert works in 24 other regions in the world that have been affected by conflict, show that civil society can play very important role in peacebuilding processes. In the Nagorno Karabakh case, it is a responsibility of the leaders to discuss the framework for a political agreement but civil society and the journalists could be leading the societies and start building the bridges of trust and confidence that could bring the societies closer to achieving peaceful settlement", said Dessislava Roussanova.



"With the end of the Forum today the work is just beginning. International Alert, together with Armenian and Azerbaijani partners is going to work on some concrete initiatives. The aim of these initiatives is to create a platform for dialogue where civil society leaders could discuss wide range of issues, from those that divide the societies to those that unite Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Then the next, 4th Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum will take place in July 2009", said Dessislava Roussanova