Ex-president of Bulgaria: Karabakh conflict cannot be settled by force

• Friday, October 5, 14:49

Any attempt to resolve the Karabakh conflict by force will resume it, ex- president of Bulgaria Zhelyu Zhelev told media in Baku, Friday, Azerbaijani media report. 

The ex-president pins hopes for sooner resolution of the conflict and continuation of the negotiations within the OSCE MG. He believes it necessary for the parties to use the experience of other countries.  Zhelyu Zhelev said that the conflict has been on the international agenda for a long period of time already. He recalled that while on the post of the Bulgarian president he had repeatedly tried to persuade both Armenian and Azerbaijanis that the conflict could be settled only through peaceful negotiations.

"It is impossible to settle it by force. Even if it is settled for certain period of time, it will break out again with the same arguments and emotions," the ex-president of Bulgaria said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict broke out on February 28 1988 in the Azerbaijani Sumgait with massacre of Armenians as a peculiar response of Azerbaijanis to the peaceful demand of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous Region, part of the Azerbaijani SSR, to unite with the Armenian SSR. This resulted in other pogroms of Armenians in Baku, Kirovabad and other regions of Azerbaijan populated with Armenians.  In 1991  Azerbaijan unleashed war against peaceful populations of Nagorno-Karabakh, expulsing ethnic Armenians from the territory of Azerbaijan. Dozens of thousands of peaceful residents on both parties were killed in the military actions, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless and have become refugees. In 1994 in Bishkek in
mediation of the OSCE MG, the NKR, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a Protocol on Ceasefire that is observed more or less so far. 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.