LIVE:The April War One Year Later: Assessing the Karabakh Negotiation Process (video)
The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, in cooperation with the Public Journalism Club and the Media Center, is hosting a discussion titled «The April War One Year Later: Assessing the Karabakh Negotiation Process» A year has passed after the April war, but the accords reached at the meetings in Vienna and Saint Petersburg have yet to be materialized, while ceasefire violations and tension on the Karabakh frontline still remain. The situation along the line of contact around Karabakh drastically worsened in the night of April 2, 2016 and full-scale hostilities began in the conflict zone. The four-day war took hundreds of lives and left wounded soldiers on both the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides. A cease-fire was then agreed on April 5, at the Moscow-brokered meeting of the chiefs of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the aftermath of the April hostilities, the most unprecedented violence since the ceasefire regime was established in 1994, the first meeting of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan took place on May 16 in Vienna. A number of agreements were reached during the Aliev-Sargsyan meeting brokered by the Foreign Ministers of France, Russia and the US. Thus, the presidents of both states reiterated their commitment to ensure compliance with the ceasefire regime and the peaceful resolution of the conflict. To prevent further risk of violence, the sides also agreed to take steps to install the OSCE mechanisms for monitoring and investigating ceasefire violations, broaden the mandate of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office's team and increase the number of international observers in the conflict area. The second meeting was organized a month later, on June 20 in Saint Petersburg, and was attended by the presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan. The leaders of the two countries restated their commitment to the accords reached at the Vienna meeting. A year has passed since the April hostilities, however, and not only no steps were taken to implement the arranged settlements, but there were regular ceasefire violations both on the line of contact around Karabakh and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. With the focus on the negotiation process around the Karabakh conflict and providing reporting on the issue from different angles, the IWPR Armenia office proposes to organize a roundtable discussion aimed to assess the talks process and post-April developments around the Karabakh conflict. Participants:
- Richard Giragosian, political expert, director of the Regional Studies Center
- Ara Papyan, former Ambassador of Armenia to Canada
- Thomas de Waal, senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, specializing in the Caucasus region.
