International Crisis Group as a deterrent in Karabakh conflict

PanARMENIAN.Net - Sabina Freizer had repeated the same thing both last year and the year before last. The core of her statement may be explained as follows; Armenia and Azerbaijan must solve the problem of Nagorno Karabakh and make it face with the fact. It's not the first time that the ICG intimidates the parties with war and terrible miseries in the region. The interesting thing is that any report made by the Crisis Group meets a hostile reception both in Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is quite understandable. Sabina Freizer perhaps thinks that from the point of view of "objectivity" one may refer to all the conflicting parties with the same message, at the same time ignoring the most important fact - Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to International Crisis Group, war is inevitable if the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are not able to agree upon signing a document, where the basic principles of the agreement are stated. ICG is hardly ignorant of the fact that without the agreement of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia's leader has no right to sign any document on the conflict regulation. And the Group of course is aware that the anti-Armenian hysteria and propaganda turned the Azeri nation into robots, having one aim only - exterminate the Armenians. But the oil income doesn't let them see what is seen by the naked eye. "Azerbaijan uses the part of its oil resources to buy armament and strengthening its military powers. At the same time the development in the economic situation in Armenia also brings to bigger military expenses. According to the project of the budget of Azerbaijan, the military expenses for the upcoming year will reach up to $1 milliard and 300 thousand which is more than the half of the budget of Armenia. Yerevan in its turn plans to assign $530 million for armament". No comments are superfluous here.

"Karabakh conflict needs more attention from International Community. We emphasize in the report that according to us International Community doesn't pay sufficient attention to this conflict. Everybody is kind of used to think of it as of a frozen conflict, but it is of course not frozen, since there is always fire exchange. Reserving status quo may become one more reason for just another burst of violence. If the International Community continues ignoring this conflict, a new war may start between two countries having signed the agreement about European neighborhood. We call upon not only the OSCE Minsk Group, but also the European Union and wide circles of the International Community to play a more serious role and use their influence on the conflicting parties, for them to come to an agreement," says the report.

Meanwhile in Azerbaijan the political figures say just the opposite of what the Crisis Group says. According to the chairman of the Social-Democratic Party Araz Alizade, "while the Azeri territories are under the occupation of the "Armenian separatists", Azerbaijan must get armament and strengthen its military forces. Alizade thinks that it is worthless to speak about any military actions for the nearest future, as Presidential elections are underway both in Armenian and in Azerbaijan, writes "Zerkalo". It was mentioned by a political scientist that the call of ICG is just a usual phenomenon. This organization aims at preventing violence. "As for the fact that we very often hear different announcements about possible military actions, I can say that the leadership of Azerbaijan makes such announcements because we must return our lands," he said.

The manager of division of the international relations of the Azeri President staff Navruz Mamedov announced that if taking into consideration the interests of the International Community and the leading states of the region, they must react to the situation and take more serious measures and efforts to resolve the situation. In other words, the World Community must start taking care of the treatment of the Azeri people infected by militarism and to try to help the nation to "return" Karabakh. Baku will continue gambling on oil, which it gets from Turkmen fields.