Karabakh conflict is at risk of turning into Israeli- Palestinian, says Erika Lerner, a Czech member of the Association of the European Center of Meetings between East and West, in an online interview with ArmInfo.
It is noteworthy that ceasefire breaches have become too frequent on the Armenian-Azerbaijani and Karabakh-Azerbaijani border over the last weeks. Furthermore, soldiers and peaceful residents are killed in Azerbaijan's regular sabotages.
"Amid growing tension in the conflict zone, the OSCE can interfere with diplomatic methods only. It makes calls and statements that are no taken seriously by the conflicting parties. A military or, to be more precise, factual interference to reduce tension is possible only if the ceasefire breaches spiral into a serious - albeit short - confrontation. They may adopt a decision to deploy peacekeepers, but it will not guarantee against civilian casualties," Lerner says.
The expert is not sure that the U.S. and France are ready to support Armenia in case of a serious danger. According to Lerner, the attitude of Washington and Paris to the ongoing Syria crisis shows that those countries used to change their stances and not always in favor of the Syrian authorities. Meanwhile, historically France is much closer to Syria than Armenia.
Joint online press conference of experts from various countries for Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian mass media on the relevant problems are organized within the project
"Expansion of knowledge of Armenians and Azerbaijanis about each other and confidence building through first-hand information". The project of the "Region" Research Center (Armenia) and Peace and Democracy Institute (Azerbaijan) is supported by the British Embassies in Armenia and Azerbaijan.