VISIT OF ARMENIAN AND AZERI DELEGATIONS TO NKR, YEREVAN AND BAKU IS "WELL-DIRECTED SURPRISE"

PanARMENIAN.Net
10.07.2007 15:32 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The visit of Armenian and Azeri intellectuals to Stepanakert, Yerevan and Baku is a "well-directed surprise," political scientist Levon Melik Shahnazaryan told a news conference in Yerevan.

It can be assessed as a positive move, according to him. However, he said that it's not a novelty and reminded of similar visits in 1904, 1918 and 1988, in the years of collisions between Armenians and Azeris that resulted in a war waged by Azerbaijan with the assistance from the outside.

"The visit is pregnant with danger. "Kiss the enemy's hand but keep an axe in your bosom" - this is peculiar to Turkish mentality," the Armenian political scientist considers.

"Armenians should always keep this in mind. Azeris will not be able to conduct war. World powers will not allow this. The problem is theAzeri army itself," he said.

July 28, 2007, the Azeri delegation led by Polad Bul-Bul-ogly, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia, crossed the mine-free sector of the contact line between the Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forced, on Mardakert-Terter (Mir Bashir) road. The delegation was accompanied to Stepanakert by representatives of the Karabakhi side. A delegation of Armenian intellectuals led by Armen Smbatian, the RA Ambassador to Russia also arrived in the NKR capital.

Afterwards, the delegations made for Yerevan to meet Armenian President Robert Kocharian. The same evening they departed for Baku and met with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev.