"The facts that Armenians are the majority and ought to be able to rule themselves in Karabakh has to be reconciled with the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan"

"Nagorno-Karabakh is a problem that can be solved by recognizing the interests of both sides", US analyst on Russia and South Caucasus, Ronald Grigor Suny, said in an interview.

"Such a solution was available about twelve years ago, but that opportunity was lost. The facts that Armenians are the majority and ought to be able to rule themselves in Karabakh has to be reconciled with the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, possibly though a federal status that is real, gives Karabakh full autonomy but maintains a de jure association with Azerbaijan. Neither side will like that solution but it might be a step toward greater cooperation and less hostility" Suny, who is a Director of Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan and also is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History of the University of Chicago, said.

According to him, the principal problem in the South Caucasus is that "these three (countries in the region) have fallen into a pattern of mutual hostility, based on exclusivist claims to territory, to the rightness of their cause, their own victimhood, and seeing others as enemies".

"How those attitudes will be overcome is very difficult to say, but it is a first important step toward integration into the Euro-Atlantic structure, which is based on forgetting the negative aspects of the past. Caucasia weakens itself through these conflicts", he said, adding that negotiation and compromise is the only way out.


/APA/