GREATEST OBSTACLE TO PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT IS NO LONGER AT NEGOTIATING TABLE, CAVANAUGH SAYS

PanARMENIAN.Net - YEREVAN, May 17. /Mediamax/. OSCE Minsk Group U.S. co-chairman Carey Cavanaugh said the greatest obstacle to a peaceful settlement was no longer at the negotiating table. However, he did not define concretely what kind of obstacle he meant.

Cavanaugh said this in an Open Forum at the Open Society Institute on May 11. According to him, Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan felt "closer to peace than ever before." At the same time, Cavanaugh said, years of negotiations have worn down the intransigent positions of Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijan President Heidar Aliyev regarding Karabakh, but the public has been isolated from the evolving phases of the discussions. As a result, says Cavanaugh of Aliyev and Kocharian, "I think that they, themselves, are mentally in a different place than their populations." He says the leaders of the two countries have understood that compromises are the only chance for the conflict to be settled.

Speaking about the confidentiality of the negotiations, he brought the example of Middle East conflict. As the elements of a solution for the Middle East became public they were ripped apart by oppositions, which had a negative affect on settlement.

Still, Cavanaugh would not set what he called an "artificial deadline" on the peace process. "The dilemma in working peace settlements is if you don't have the whole thing, in many ways you don't have anything," he said. --0--