After April Four-Day War Number of Visits of Foreign Officials to NKR Sharply Increased

• 06.04.2016, 16:55
• Liana Hovhannisyan
•  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  NKR

At the beginning of April as a result of wide-scale military operations against Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Azerbaijan indirectly made NKR appear in the center of the attention of international community.  During those days Karabakh conflict became a top news for leading international media agencies and tens of foreign reporters visited NKR to get first hand information and cover the situation.

In this context it is interesting also to state that after the four-day April war the visits of foreign officials to NKR and meeting with NKR high level officials became more frequent. To make the claim grounded it is enough to state that only in the period of April-May the NKR President had 6 official meetings with foreign officials. Among the foreign guests there were MPs from the European Parliament, Germany, France, Greece, Latvia and Bulgaria. To compare in the period of February-March besides the meeting with the personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office, NKR President had only one meeting with a group of Flemish parliamentarians of the Kingdom of Belgium.

Such a sharp increase in the number of the foreign officials’ visits to NKR first of all proves the above mentioned thesis according to which NKR appeared in the center of the attention of the international community. After four-day war more foreign officials become interested in the developments in NKR which made them to visit NKR and get first hand information. The actualization of the topic on Karabakh conflict contributed to starting to perceive NKR as a direct side in the conflict by more officials who claim that without it the conflict cannot be resolved.  In this sense it is not occasional at all that recently more officials voiced about NKR’s being direct party in the conflict. It was voiced by such foreign official as MP of the European Parliament Frank Engel, former US Ambassador to Armenia John Evans, and the Russian Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Popov.

In parallel  a group of  officials who visited NKR and not only them began to more frequently voice about the aggression against the peaceful residents of NKR by Azerbaijan and circulate the thesis according to which additional mechanisms are necessary to ensure that the rights of the peaceful population are defended. In this sense it is not occasional either that the parallels began to be drawn between Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Kosovo. As US Senator from Illinois Mark Kirk noted, after recent developments any act of Azerbaijani aggression will strengthen the arguments of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic to reach the resolution of the conflict the way Kosovo conflict was resolved. To put it otherwise to stop the Azerbaijani aggression against peaceful residents the international community will be forced to recognize NKR independence.

Thus as a resulted of awareness-raising of the international community on NKR some changes took place in their perceptions, which cannot but to positively affect the process of NKR international recognition.