BAKU (Trend)–The International Crisis Group will publish a new report on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict next week, according to ICG Europe Program Director Sabine Freizer, the Azerbaijani Trend news agency reported on Wednesday.
The report will “focus on the possibility of a new war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh,” Trend quoted Freizer as saying.
According to Freizer, the report is based on research carried out in Azerbaijan and Armenia over the course of four months by a group of ICG analysts.
“The main focus that we are looking at is increased ceasefire violations on the line-of-contact, military budgets of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and of course, the failure of the Minsk Group’s facilitated talks to make progress,” she explained.
Established in 1995, the ICG regularly publishes reports on Nagorno Karabakh and other regions and countries embroiled in conflict.
The last ICG report on Karabakh was released in 2009. The report, titled “Nagorno-Karabakh: Getting to a Breakthrough,” can be read here. According to Freizer, the upcoming report will be a follow-up to the 2009 document.
In 2007, the ICG issued a report, titled “Nagorno Karabakh: Risking war,” which can be read here. The report explored various ways of resolving the conflict and assessed the likelihood of renewed hostilities in the area.
The ICG first wrote about Karabakh in 2005, when it published two reports on the conflict.
Don’t expect anything worthwhile or new from this report. ICG exists to spur on conflicts, not to solve them. Furthermore, freizer is a turkophile.
Here’s a safe bet: The upcoming International Crisis Group report on Nagorno Karabakh will echo the policies of its funders, including the State Department, by trying to breath new life into a failed Madrid-style settlement model that presses Armenians to make major a) up-front, b) specific and c) irrevocable concessions in return for Ilham Aliyev’s promise of a) deferred, b) vague, and 3) reversible compromises. – Aram Suren Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA
Dear Aram, It seems as though anything can be expected from the State Department these days. They look at us as a new fledgeling landlocked country who has no oil to be benefited from. Well, the Diaspora and Armenia proper + Artsakh are connected by blood and by deed. We are One and together we will floorish and make Armenia+Artsakh strong dual sovereignty in the Caucasus. One thing they all forget; that this 20% of the remainder of our historical homeland is Armenians’ sole pride and hope. We are resilient, smart, brave, mighty and we will floorish again, despite Turkey, Azerbaijan and the U.S.A.
Be suspicious of the ICG. The man who heads up the Turkey division is the Turkophile “Hugh Pope,” who has written books on Turkey and who lives in Turkey with his wife Nicole who is also a Turkophile writer.
He is the one behind the horrible report on Turkish-Armenian relations issued a year or so back.