NATO Coordinator on South Caucasus: "The level of Azerbaijan-NATO cooperation will depend on Azerbaijan"

He noted that NATO supports Azerbaijan's integration with all European structures and stressed Azerbaijan'ssignificant progress in the military education and trainings conducted within the framework of cooperation with NATO and IPAP.

"The first two years of cooperation have passed and the new program to be implemented in 2008 will consider all these achievements. The level of cooperation with NATO will depend on Azerbaijan", Z.Rybacki said.

In turn the Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Avni Karkioglu noted thatalong wth the issues of security, the agenda must also include the Nagorno Garabagh problem. "The Nagorno Garabagh conflict remains a frozen conflict of the region and it is necessary to undertake more significant and decisive measures for the settlement of this issue, as Nagorno Garabagh means so much to us", he said.

The ambassador also stressed the necessity of further development of the bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO.

The Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Araz Azimov noted that "Azerbaijan has long been cooperating with its neighbors within the NATO framework". He also announced that regional processes, which raise tensions, may cause new problems of security.

The NISA winter session will continue until December 15. It is devoted to the discussion of problems and perspectives of peacekeeping operatons on the Euro-Atlantic space.

The session will also discuss programs of partnership and policy of NATO on the Caucasus, NATO's peacekeeping operations, their principles and legal bases, as well as national positions, conceptual attitude towards the war and peace, reforms of security sector in the post-conflict communities, role of media and civil organizations in the peacekeeping process, and relations between military and civil communities. The session participants will familiarize with the peacekeeping batallion of Armed Forces.


The participants of the NISA winter session will hear the reports of the representatives of Azerbaijan'sForeign Ministry, NATO, OSCE, British Defense Academy, Copenhagen University, Marshall European Center for Security, NATO youth organizations and independent experts.

The conference will be attended by nearly 50 students, young scientists and independentexperts from Azerbaijan, USA, Germany, Belarus, Belgium, Czechia, Italy, Denmark, Egypt. Finland, France, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Russia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine.

The winter session of NISA is financed by the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan and the NATO Public Diplomacy Department.

/Day.Az/