Participants in Baku meeting call to resume civil dialogue with Yerevan

Contacts of civil society activists of Armenia and Azerbaijan may help in peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, but the informal dialogue of its parties has degraded, the authors of the study on possibilities of civil diplomacy, presented in Baku, have stated.

During 14 months, the study of public opinion on the Karabakh conflict was conducted by the Baku and Yerevan Press Clubs with the support of the US State Department. The results of the study of the potentials of civil diplomacy in settling conflicts were presented at the August 2 meeting with the participation of Azerbaijani journalists and experts, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

"The study was conducted both in Azerbaijan and Armenia," Arif Aliev, the head of the Baku Press Club, said at the meeting.

The study has confirmed that today the intensity and content of the informal dialogue of the parties to the Karabakh conflict are at the lowest level since the start of the confrontation in 1988.

The authors called it necessary to revive the Armenian-Azerbaijani dialogue. It was recommended that international mediators promote, in the course of official negotiations, the idea of supporting civil initiatives by the parties in conflict, while international organizations are encouraged to actively attract civil society activists in Armenia and Azerbaijan to joint projects.

The participants of the meeting expressed their general opinion that the dialogue of the civil societies of the two countries can be useful for the process of resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 3, 2019 at 02:52 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.