“I think that both the Armenian side and the Azeri side are trying to win time for the Karabagh peace settlement. The Armenian side thinks that the more time passes by, the more the situation will stay the same and they can hope that the Karabagh status will not stay de facto. As for the Azeri, they believe that the country’s economic status is improving on the account of the high prices of oil,” said the program director of the International Alert Group in the Southern Caucasus Sabina Freizer. According to Freizer, the Azeri government has told Karabagh many times about “how ready it is to give the highest autonomy to Karabagh within its territory,” however, Azerbaijan has not said what it means by “the highest autonomy”.
Sabina Freizer also touched upon the issue of allocating the peacekeeping forces in the conflict zone. In her words, the International Alert Group claims that the peacekeeping forces allocated in the conflict zone must not be from the U.S., Russia or Turkey.
“We believe that Europe should allocate peacekeeping forces,” said S. Freizer. The IAG representative also said that Karabagh is the only internationally unrecognized country that the U.S. supports. According to S. Freizer, the U.S. has provided 17 million dollars to that “republic” throughout the years of 1998-2004.
A.G.