Nagorno-Karabakh conflict still frozen

Azerbaijan today called on the European Union to help find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The predominantly ethnic-Armenian territory was occupied by Armenia as the Soviet Union crumbled in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

Less than a month ago, both Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents expressed their readiness to speed up the process of reaching agreement on the disputed territory during a meeting hosted by the Russian president.

“The two have basically agreed at various times what the basic outline of the resolution of the conflict would be,” said Lawrence Sheets, an analyst and expert on the Caucasus region for the International Crisis Group.

“It’s incredible because the basic framework – the basic things that the two sides seem to agree one – they same to be in relative commonality,” he told Vatican Radio. “But when you start discussing these smaller issues, which are politically potentially explosive or dangerous to the administrations in control…it becomes very difficult.”

Listen to the full interview by Davide Maggiore with Lawrence Sheets: