YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–Through the assistance of the United Nations Development Program Human Rights Center and the "EIDOS" Social and Humanitarian Research Center organized a round table discussion on Thursday to discuss Armenia’s problems of conflict and violence–as well as possible solutions.
The discussion mainly focused on the Karabakh issue. Academician Nikolay Hovanessian–director of the center for conflictology–presented his viewpoint suggesting that the conflict should be settled with the principle of self-determination prevailing over the territorial integrity principle. According to him–it is necessary to strengthen the theoretical basis of conflict settlement methods and to activate public organizations’ efforts for the world community to accept the given conception.
Professor Aleksandr Manasian–Ph.D.–of the Fund Against Violation of Law–offered to strengthen the legal aspects of the conflict. He opined that the problem is resolvable in the fringes of the Kars agreement of 1921–under which all Azeri territorial claims in relation to Karabakh and neighboring lands are legally groundless.
Levon Nersesian–chairman of the Human Rights Fund–spoke of the conflict between refugees and the native population of Armenia. He noted that this conflict has not been solved for the past 10 years. To evade its aggravation–according to Nersesian–urgent measures should be taken to naturalize refugees in Armenia–who make up 10 percent of Armenia’s population. He was backed by well-known ethnographer and public figure Hran’sh Kharatian who drew an example of public actions after which conflict situations in places of cohabitation were to a great extent softened.