The news portal of the Foreign Policy Association, headquartered in New York, U.S. has published an article by Rachel Avraham, an Israeli political analyst and journalist, CEO of the Dona Gracia Center for Diplomacy, headlined “Swiss Peace Forum on Karabakh must be two-sided.”

“The Peace Forum, which is scheduled to be organized by the Swiss Parliament, is one-sided. It does not discuss the plight of the close to one million Azerbaijanis, who were ethnically cleansed from their homes and forced to live as refugees, including the Azerbaijani mosques and cultural heritage sites that were destroyed and left in ruins during thirty years of Armenian occupation. Rather, their resolution only discusses the damage to Armenian cultural heritage and the plight of Armenian settlers,” the article said.

“According to the reports, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Swiss Federal Assembly passed a resolution mandating a peace forum in a year to initiate an open dialogue between the Azerbaijani government and the Armenians of Karabakh,” the article mentioned.

“In the eyes of many Azerbaijanis, this makes this peace forum one-sided and violates Switzerland’s otherwise neutral foreign policy. If the Swiss wish to be true impartial mediators, they must discuss the plight of refugees on both sides and the horrific conditions of cultural heritage sites that were destroyed on both sides. Otherwise, they cannot be considered to be an impartial negotiator,” the author noted.

“Therefore, Switzerland must also give respect to the plight of more than one million Azerbaijanis that were expelled from their homes in the First Karabakh War and the destruction the Armenians did during their thirty year occupation, and only discuss what Azerbaijan did afterwards in this context,” the author emphasized.

The full text of the article is available at the link below:

https://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2024/10/29/swiss-peace-forum-on-karabakh-must-be-two-sided/

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