Giedrius Cekuolis: OSCE Minsk Group is a good tool, but it can be improved

PanARMENIAN.Net - Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for Protracted Conflicts Giedrius Cekuolis said that the lack of progress on conflicts in the OSCE area at the Astana summit in December last year will be an extra stimulus to the active work of the Lithuanian chairmanship of the organization.

"It is not the first time in diplomacy when one cannot realize all that was initially planned. Discordance on paper on the conflicts at the Astana summit means for the Lithuanian presidency a further impetus to work more actively in 2011 so that a similar document was agreed at the ministerial meeting in December in Vilnius, where the work of Lithuania will be summed up,” Cekuolis said in an interview with Trend in Baku.

The expert community has an opinion that the Lithuanian chairmanship will focus more on the settlement of the Georgian conflict, rather than on Nagorno Karabakh.

Cekuolis has dispersed these arguments. Such a claim is untrue, he said.

"All three conflicts relate to my mandate for this year, and we are considering all options, which can be helpful, on all three problems,” he said. “One cannot say that any conflict is given a preference.”

According to him, the Minsk Group is a good tool, but every instrument can be improved indefinitely.

Cekuolis would like to see more efforts in the work of the Minsk Group to identify the political will of parties to the conflict.

"Political will is not enough, and we hope to wake up this will. The Minsk Group is capable of it,” he said. “We believe that this group could greatly advance, of course, under favorable political circumstances."

Cekuolis preferred not to name more concrete measures on the conflict resolution, as all initiatives are yet to be discussed.