ICG: Armenian and Azeri Media Should Prepare Society for Compromise in Karabakh Issue

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Azeri and Armenian elite should first of all comprehend the necessity of searching for compromise in the Karabakh issue, Alain Deletroz, International Crisis Group Vice President for Europe stated. In his words, each party is trying to prove its case. "Azeris say "we should get back our lands including Nagorno Karabakh". Armenians say "we fell victims to aggression but we won and should be praised for this victory". It is very hard to prove both parties that peace is impossible without concessions," he noted.



According to Mr. Deletroz Azerbaijan should allow press to be freer when expressing the viewpoint on the problem as it is in Yerevan. In his words, media in Yerevan and Baku should prepare the society for compromise. However everything has turned out quite the contrary so far. "Is you remember once the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders agreed on some ways of the conflict settlement, which somehow penetrated into the press. I was told in Armenia that it became one of the reasons for Levon Ter-Petrosyan's resignation. While Heydar Aliyev had to tell in Baku that no agreement had been achieved," he said.



The ICG Vice President welcomes the idea that Russia, the U.S. and West think it would inexpedient to impose the ways of the conflict settlement on the parties and support the readiness to admit any peace formula achieved by the parties. "Policy of a superpower cannot be disinterested, however all will benefit from the peace in the region. As a matter of fact the states serving on the OSCE Minsk Group will not be able to deploy peacekeeping forces on the seized territories. However there are middle-sized EU member-states, which can train peacekeeping contingent and Russia's consent is important here," he said, Vremya Novostey reported.