ARMENIAN, GEORGIAN, AND AZERI POLITICAL SCIENTISTS TRY TO AGAIN
COMPREHEND EXPERIENCE OF TRANSCAUCASIAN SEJM
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. There are many threats, against which
the South Caucasian countries can struggle jointly even under
conditions of unsolved conflicts. The participants of the conference
"From the Transcaucasian Sejm to the South-Caucasian Alliance:
Experience, Problems, Prospects" held the other day in Tbilisi came to
this conclusion. The conference held on the initiative of the South
Caucasian Institute of Regional Security and a number of other
organizations was timed for the 90th anniversary of the Transcaucasian
Sejm. The goal of the organizers was to present historic estimations to
the experience of regional cooperation by the example of the
Transcaucasian Sejm, as well as some innovation proposals worked out by
South Caucasian scientists in the recent years.
According to Malkhaz Matsaberidze, a professor of Tbilisi State
University, the Director of the Institute of Political Science, the
Transcaucasian Sejm, which was created in 1918 and functioned only
three months, is a historic example of how under hard conditions
representatives of Transcaucasian peoples on their own initiative
created common power bodies and tried to jointly solve the problems
faced by them. It is interesting that human rights, including rights of
women and national minorities, were taken into consideration in the
draft Constitution of the Sejm.
Rauf Huseynov, a professor, a doctor of history and ethnology of the
Caucasian Institute of Strategic Studies, said that besides unsolved
conflicts, the fact that different Caucasian countries have joined
different military alliances hampers establishment of close relations
between Caucasian peoples. Georgia and Azerbaijan strive for membership
to NATO, Armenia is already a member of CSTO.
The participants of the discussion also discussed issues of influence
of the United States, Russia, Europe, and other leading countries on
the processes in the South Caucasian region, which is a center of
collision of different interests. Yuri Petrosian, a representative of
the Embassy of Republic of Armenia to Georgia, called for not
overestimating the role of the regional countries’ leaderships, which,
in his words, often have to make decisions under the pressure from
without.
Vakhtang Kolbaya, the former Vice-Speaker of the Georgian parliament,
said that the parliaments of Armenia and Georgia in their time signed a
document on creation of an Interparliamentary Assembly of the South
Caucasian countries, but the initiative did not have a continuation.
In spite of the situation formed in the region, in the opinion of the
discussion participants, there are many common problems, the attempt of
joint solution of which would contribute to establishment of close
relations between the peoples and solution of the existing conflicts.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress