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Center for Strategic Studies hosts roundtable â€œBarack Obama administration and Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh conflictâ€

29 April 2011 11:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Habil Suleymanov â€“ APA. A roundtable â€œBarack Obama administration and Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh conflictâ€ was held in at the Center for Strategic Studies under President of Azerbaijan Republic (SAM). Professor of the Israelâ€™s Haifa University Brenda Shaffer and professor of the US George Washington University Cory Welt addressed the roundtable as the main rapporteurs. In her keynote speech,Center director Gulshan Pashayeva reminded the history of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the peaceful efforts of the Azerbaijani leadership and development dynamics of America-Azerbaijan over the last decades.

Professor of the George Washington University Cory Welt focused attention on the initiatives of the US regional policy of recent years. The American expert confessed that the Obama administration made relevant mistakes in this direction and one of them was attempt of Turkish-Armenian reconcilement. According to Welt, missing the Azerbaijani position and Karabakh factor during this initiative led to suspension of border opening initiative. According to the professor, the development dynamics of the events during Turkish-Armenian reconcilement showed that it was impossible to solve this issue leaving aside the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Concerning the Congressâ€™s annual financial aids to Karabakh, Welt confessed that this issue was related with the â€œinternal political factorsâ€. Thus, there is an influence of ethnic communities, concretely the influence of Armenian community on the Congress decisions.

Another rapporteur addressing at the roundtable Brenda Shaffer said that there is disbalance of forces between super countries in the South Caucasus region and Russia feels itself very reassured than the US and Europe: â€œIt especially began to observe after Russiaâ€™s military intervention to Georgiaâ€.

The roundtable ended with the discussions between MPs, diplomats and experts.