Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 12 / Trend S.Suleymanov /
Third parties' mediation between the two countries in a conflict situation can not be productive until the parties to the conflict are willing to concede to each other, said Martha Brill Olcott, the senior associate with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C.
"It is impossible to achieve solution to problem through a mediator," Olcott told Trend." This is possible only if both sides would be willing to erect a bridge between each other."
Olcott said this principle applies to conflicts in the South Caucasus region both the Nagorno-Karabakh and the conflict in Georgia.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The so-called Geneva talks are held to stabilize the situation after the conflict in Georgia in 2008. The delegations of Abkhazia, Georgia, Russia, the U.S. and South Ossetia, as well as representatives of the European Union, UN and OSCE take part in the talks on an equal basis.
The policy of rapprochement of the conflicting countries' peoples also has a chance to succeed, Olcott added.
In the South Caucasus, the idea of bringing people closer is applicable only to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.
"These measures can be effective here and people can influence the decision of politicians," she said.
But this is impossible in the case of Georgia, because the third country - Russia is involved in the conflict, Olcott said.
Russia recognized the independence of Georgia's separatist regions - Abkhazia and South Ossetia in late August 2008. Diplomatic relations between Moscow and Tbilisi were suspended.
The European Union and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev voiced the initiative for rapprochement of the peoples of the conflicting countries.
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