Azerbaijan, Baku / Тrend corr S. Ilhamgizi / A meeting and joint visit of the representatives of Azerbaijani and Armenian intelligentsia was an attempt to establish peace and there is a hope that this format will provide good results, the Rector of the Baku Slavonic University, Professor Kamal Abdullah, said on 29 June. He was one of the intellectuals who paid a visit to Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
On 28 June, by the initiative of Azerbaijani and Armenian Ambassadors in Russia, a group of intelligentsia from the two countries, with the assistance of OSCE, visited the Khankandi and Shusha regions of Nagorno-Karabakh, and afterwards visited Armenia where they met with the Armenian President Robert Kocharian. Then in Baku, the delegation was received by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
According to Abdullah, there are coinciding viewpoints on several issues between the Azerbaijani and Armenian intelligentsia, who were communicating without mediators. The sides agreed upon the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. "They now already admit that Azerbaijanis and Armenians must again live together. Now or in the future they will face the necessity of restoring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. But that requires political will on the Armenian side. The Azerbaijani President noted during the meeting with the delegation that Azerbaijanis could not give anything more to Armenians. Armenia should vacate Azerbaijan's seven regions that are under senseless occupation," he added.
Abdullah said that the representatives of the Armenian delegation were alarmed at the possibility of war in the case that a peaceful settlement to the conflict is not achieved.
"Ours and their wish is to resolve the conflict in a peaceful way. For this purpose we tried to make the format produce some results, in case peaceful opportunities are exhausted. The opportunities of the format, however, depend on the Armenian side," the professor summed up.
