Azerbaijan, Baku, June 25 / Trend, E.Ostapenko /
While the Kazan Summit of the Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents did not produce any groundbreaking results, it is already time to coordinate the basic principles of Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, which will be the first step towards peace in the region, Trend Expert Council member Amanda Paul believes.
"The Basic Principles have been talked about and negotiated for a long time thereby it is time to finalize them and sign," Paul, an expert on the South Caucasus countries, wrote Trend in an e-mail.
She said the current status is not acceptable.
The summit of the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia ended without reaching an agreement on the basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, but the sides mentioned the progress towards this goal, a joint statement after the summit in Kazan said, RIA Novosti reported.
The Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia discussed the basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement on Friday in Kazan.
"The Heads of State highlighted the achievement of mutual understanding on a number of issues, the solution of which contributes to creating conditions to approve the basic principles," said the statement.
The document says that the meeting participants reviewed the activities conducted to agree upon the project of basic principles.
"While the security concerns of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians are important it nevertheless cannot be used forever to justify the on-going occupation of seven other Azerbaijani regions and continued displacement of their populations," Paul said.
She underscored that a cycle of elections will be launched both in the countries of the Minsk Group and in Armenia and Azerbaijan it is very important to maintain the momentum and quickly follow this summit up with further such meetings.
"The optimal is to get the Basic Principles signed by the end of this year. Part of this process will be starting to prepare the two societies for the concessions that will be required in order to reach and deal. For their part the international community needs to keep the conflict high on the agenda and continue to cajole the two leaders to make progress," she believes.
Paul does not believe the lack of progress at Kazan will necessarily increase tensions on the Line of Contact, "where tensions already run quite high".
"While I strongly believe that neither Azerbaijan or Armenia desires renewed war, and have both managed to "contain" their sabre-rattling and ceasefire violations over the last few years, it is obvious that the longer this goes on for, the more likely war by accident is because the risk of an violation spiraling out of control is growing," she said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.