On 15-17 April, European Parliament's Young Political Leaders' programme was held in Strasbourg, France. Representatives from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Israel, and Palestine participated in the programme. Assistant to the President of the International Eurasia Press Fund, political analyst Anastasia Lavrina was one of the delegates from Azerbaijan. She told Eurasia Diary about her impressions from the programme.
A. Lavrina noticed that it was the third year "Young Political Leaders" programme she attended. It differed from other ones with its format.
'Youth political leaders, analytics from 4 countries gave information about conflicts in the regions and propossed their suggestions on peace promotion. Aside from the conflicts, human rights issues, civil society development, legal state foundation and other issues were discussed in the conference', she said.
'We had numerous essential meetings at the European Parliament, European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe and the European Youth Center. High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the Commission Federica Mogherini, German politician, the member of European Parliament Rebecca Harms and many others. Also, we met different European experts who are dealing with conflicts.
The conference was held quite good but it cannot be said that everything was ideal. So, I observed some problems and I would like to touch them. First, Armenian representatives as always said opinions against Azerbaijan. Of course, it was expected. However, not only Armenians but also some Azerbaijani representatives from the opposition and civil society members spoke about the local problems in Azerbaijan such as the problems with human rights and freedom of expression. But in the Armenian side, such case did not occur. Perhaps the main reason was participation of several governmental representatives while it was not so with Azerbaijan representatives. One of the participants was an assistant to speaker of Armenian Parliament, another was a Member of Parliament. It is important to notice that Armenian representatives who are members of civil society were speaking on peace and importance of negotiations. But the situation with their officials were different.
Thi programme is a good platform to talk about Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The delegation from Azerbaijan gave a joint statement and said concretely about occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia. We said that Armenian Armed Forces have to leave Azerbaijani lands as soon as possible that is a key issue for peace promotion.
Those delegates from Armenia who acted on behalf of the official government tried to speak about the revolution in Armenia as about a step towards the resolution of the conflict. They also called for the same revolution to happen in Azerbaijan. It was an attempt to persuade the European officials that the resolution of the conflict is hidden in the revolution and so-called democratic development. In reply to this I stated that there is no relation between democracy and peace in Karabakh. Peace has no connection with the political system and the regime in the country. If Armenia wants peace talks, they have to take their military troops out of occupied Azerbaijani territory. The revolution does not have any link with peacebuilding.'
Apart from that, A.Lavrina spoke about ecological problems in the occupied regions of Azerbaijan as well as in the war-affected regions. She also raised an issue about the occupied by Armenians Sarsang water reservoir. She also spoke about the youth reforms being done by the government of Azerbaijan. She noticed that currently, the state's attention to youth development is leading to legal and social reforms that stimulate civil society development.
