Azerbaijan, Baku, 29 May / Trend corr. M.Aliyev / For now the regulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not the first priority for the new elected President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, Thomas de Vaal, a political scientist and author of the well-known book -Black garden: Azerbaijan and Armenia -between peace and war", believes.
"The Armenian President is in the difficult political state after the disputable presidential elections and bloodshed happened in Armenia on 1 March and tries to approve the legitimacy of his position before the population," de Vaal told to Trend via e-mail from London on 29 May.
The conflict between the two countries of South Caucasus began in 1988 due to territorial claims by Armenia against Azerbaijan. Armenia has occupied 20% of the Azerbaijani land including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding Districts. Since 1992, these territories have been under the occupation of the Armenian Forces. In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active hostilities ended. The Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia, France and USA) are currently holding peaceful negotiations.
The first meeting between the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian's Serzh Sargsyan is scheduled for 6 June within the framework of the informal summit of the CIS member-countries.
Thomas de Vaal believes that neither Washington nor Moscow do not see to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as the priority in Caucasus yet. "The leaders of the both countries will prolong the time and will make serious compromises," de Vaal said.
According to de Vaal, the perspectives for the private cooperation between Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan will be better than with Robert Kocharian.
However, the current circumstances dictate that the negotiation process is in the deadlock. "It is difficult to imagine that currently Azerbaijan dissociates from the "main principles" that was discussed in 2007. However, Armenians say that no negotiations can be held around the document, which says the territorial integrity".
In the end of 2007, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs for the first time gave the document "Main principles" to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Thomas de Vaal has commented the will of Armenians of Karabakh to join the negotiation process. "Unfortunately, the issue regarding participation of Karabakh residents in the negotiation process is politicized. It is said in Yerevan that the conflict is conflict between the Karabakh Armenians and Baku, and Armenia was just an interested side is not right. From the other side, the position of Baku that the conflict goes on between Baku and Yerevan is also wrong," de Vaal said.
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