EU LAUNCHES SECOND PHASE OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH CIVIL SOCIETY PEACE EFFORTS

RTT News
Nov 6 2012

The European Union has announced the launch of the second phase of the
civil society program European Partnership for the Peaceful Settlement
of the Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (EPNK).

This program aims to support peace-building efforts concerning the
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh by facilitating dialogue between civil
society, media and policy-makers.

Established under the Instrument for Stability – the EU’s special
financial instrument created to support the peaceful settlement of
conflicts, de-escalation of tensions and post-conflict rehabilitation
worldwide – EPNK is a consortium of five European NGOs, which seeks to
work with local partners in the South Caucasus on a wide range of
peace-building projects and to help improve conditions for the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process.

The program promotes a dynamic dialogue between a broad range of
policymakers, media and civil society from all sides of the conflict.

It also supports a wider participation of conflict-affected people in
the peace process, including women, youth, internally displaced
persons and refugees, the European Council said in a pres release on
Tuesday.

Program activities are arranged around three main themes: media,
public policy and conflict affected groups. They aim to broaden the
base of participation in peace-building initiatives, with special
attention given to marginalized groups; Build confidence between all
sides of the conflict through increased people-to-people contact;
Promote fresh analysis and new ideas that challenge existing
discourses on the conflict with peace-oriented visions of the future,
and actively engage civil society in dialogue with policy makers at
national and international levels on the transformation of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The EPNK program will last three years and is a continuation of a
program launched in 2009 under the Instrument for Stability.

The landlocked mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh is the subject
of an unresolved decades-old dispute between Azerbaijan, in which it
lies, and its ethnic Armenian majority, who have the support of
neighboring Armenia.

A six-year-old bloody war between Azerbaijani troops and Armenian
secessionists ended up in the latter taking control of the de facto
independent state with a truce signed in 1994.

The two sides are still technically at war as a permanent peace
agreement remain unachievable despite negotiations. The
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute is regarded as one of the “frozen conflicts”
of post-Soviet era Europe.

by RTT Staff Writer