Epress.am News from Armenia
The lack of a negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh means Armenia and Azerbaijan are preparing for war, said Caucasus Center of Peace-Making Initiatives (CCPI) President Georgy Vanyan in an interview with 1news.az.
“The process with the international community’s light touch and given the resounding title of ‘negotiations’ for its own [i.e. the international community’s] convenience moves on autopilot, which secures our northern neighbor’s guaranteed and convenient placement in our region. The Karabakh conflict does not exist, it has long been transformed into a Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Since 1994, this conflict is in a state of temporary cessation of full-scale military action,” explained Vanyan.
The resumption of war, according to Vanyan, has nothing to do with the process of “settlement” and every second there’s a risk. “Armenians and Azerbaijanis don’t aim to develop these events; we have a problem to stop this. As soon as it’s possible to say ‘Stop!’ and put an end to it.”
Assessing this year in terms of conflict resolution, the CCPI president said, “This year, the war, between us and you, claimed human lives; this year both of our peoples gave this terrible ‘tribute’ to the war. We lived this year in anticipation of greater sacrifices, breathed the air poisoned by hatred, reconciled with the absurdity of undeclared martial law — in such an environment, our kids grew one year older.”
Vanyan expressed confidence that there is another path, another option. “I embody my choice in action and give the same opportunity to everyone. For these very activities, the self-styled military-patriotic tribunal declared the death penalty upon me, and the perpetrator of this sentence was our self-styled elite. The mass media, civil society, state institutions served their best toward this aim. Essayists having the highest intellect, Komsomols [Communist Union of Youth] and fascists, telephone terrorists all began to work in the same direction: not to allow audiences to view Azerbaijani films [as part of the Azerbaijani film festival Vanyan attempted to organize in Yerevan this year].
“I expect the dissolution, the defeat of the military-patriotic tribunal in the near future, and as much as I can, I am making this process happen sooner,” summed up the human rights activist.