The Interview of Johannes Hahn as an Opportunity

• 03.14.2015, 15:50
• Liana Hovhannisyan
•  "Insight" Analytical Center

In his recent interview given to Azerbaijani APA news agency the EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn spoke about a number of important aspects concerning Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution, such as the present situation on the borders, war rhetoric; the factors in the presence of which it is impossible to build trust among the conflicting parties; the trust that would be the most important guarantee for succeeding on the negotiation table.

In his interview Johannes Hahn condemns war rhetoric, aggression and as he calls it " tit-for-tat" strategy of conflicting parties. In this context, although the European official again avoided to name the guilty side, if one takes into consideration the present  aggressive behavior of the Azerbaijani side on the borders not only against Armenian  armed forces but also civilians, as well as war rhetoric of the Azerbaijani President and other high level officials , it will not  be difficult to guess who is the addressee.

All this gives an opportunity to assume, that the high-level European officials have realized it quite well what  the real obstacles to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution are. Those obstacles are  consistent  threat and  use of force, anti-Armenian war rhetoric; the ones that leave the Armenian sides no choice  but to respond in the same though way. In this situation a question arises: isn't it the appropriate time  to  undertake concrete measures under the European institutions and its  initiatives  such as  the EU Eastern Partnership, Council of Europe,  to reduce the present war  rhetoric?