On October 11, 2005, the International Crisis Group (ICG) published Europe Report N°167 titled “Nagorno-Karabakh: A Plan for Peace.”

ICG is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization, with over 110 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

ICG has a very impressive Appendix C to F in their report, which talks about who they are, what other reports they have prepared and who their high profile board of trustees and staff are.

I really was not very impressed with the recommendations of the report, though the overview of the situation was quite detailed and from the facts presented, I would have expected more logical and balanced recommendations. The overall recommendations looked very pro-Azeri to me.

There were a few things which sensationalize reality in the report, like how “…there is a real risk of new large-scale fighting.”

There has been a “real risk” of new large-scale fighting since the 1994 ceasefire agreement expired in 1999.

Reality is that we have not had any large-scale fighting for the last 6 years and I don’t believe we will anytime soon since the Azeri’s have much more to loose if large-scale fighting starts and the few dozen scud missiles we received from Russia since 1994 are launched.

I’m sure in that case, much more damage will be inflicted to the oilfields and Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, then any attack on our little capitol of Stepanagert could ever sustain. The worst that could happen to us is that the 11 story apartment building that Louise Manoogian help build will get hit and collapse like a house of cards.

I didn’t notice anywhere in the recommendations that our Northern territory of Shahumian would be reunited with Artsakh proper, which would be the fair and logical thing to do since they are expecting us to give them 5 of the territories that we liberated.

Anyway, it seems that this report is just another Azeri wet-dream that will not become much of anything, not even a starting point for dialog between the disputing parties.

I wonder who asked ICG to prepare this report in the first place?