Tuesday, June 16 2015 12:01

 The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are waiting for an agreed stand of the presidents, which means that they have come to a "conceptual deadlock." The Minsk Group has nothing to offer the conflicting parties in exchange for their refusal from their own interpretation of the Madrid Principles says Ali Abbasov, the leading expert at the Institute of Philosophy and Rights, Azerbaijan's Academy of Sciences. 

"The Minsk process has come to a conceptual deadlock, as the text of the Madrid Principles is not available. This gives a reason to experts and even officials to interpret them in their own way. The public has no opportunity to observe the negotiations, as the heads of the conflicting parties do not seek to inform the public of the essence of the Madrid Principles," the expert said.  

Abbasov recalled that the principles imply agreed бcompromises for a final peace. Meanwhile, considering that it is impossible to combine these compromises, the principles can be approved only if the contradictions in the parties' stands are found and liquidated. 

In this light, the expert urges for serious public discussions that have not been held either in Azerbaijan or in Armenia. Abbasov is sure that meetings of specialists and experts of NGOs and parties even with participation of the two countries and the Nagorny Karabakh communities are too rare to be counted.  In his article in "Analiticon" journal, the expert writes that the elites and public have different approaches to the principles at least in view of the information they have access to. Under influence of official propaganda promising to crackdown the enemy, the tired public still makes maximal demands.  The elite supports all the proposals of the president and refrains from involving into the negotiation process.  Intellectuals are persecuted. 

In this light, Abbasov made a point of the confidence building measures that have been stopped in view of the extreme uncertainty of the situation with NGOs in Azerbaijan. The protests are not back with the measures of international organizations to change the situation. In this light, Track II diplomacy will become possible only after it is officially approved.

The expert urges fundamental revision of the major issues at the Track II meetings, development of an action plan for gradual settlement of the conflict and signing of a peace agreement.

Since 1992 the OSCE Minsk Group represented by co-chairs from Russia, U.S. and France has been mediating in resolution of the conflict unleashed by Azerbaijan in 1988. At present the peace process is based on the Madrid Principles suggested by the OSCE MG in 2007 in Madrid and renovated in 2009.