Assa-Irada,
15, April 2008

Representatives of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova gathered in Baku on Tuesday to seek ways of settling "frozen" conflicts in their territories.

The conference of the GUAM group's member states focusing on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh, and those over the Georgian republic of Abkhazia and Dnestr, Moldova comes amid abating diplomatic efforts to resolve outstanding regional disputes.

The event is attended chiefly by the countries friendly to GUAM, while Russia and other mediating states are essentially not represented. The participants include officials and experts from Turkey, Georgia, Britain, Germany, Israel, Poland, Romania, Austria and Baltic states.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said the goal of the GUAM states was to break the ice in settling the lingering conflicts. These disputes, he said, are impeding economic development.

"All conflicts existing in the GUAM territory emerged from aggressive separatism. Double standard approaches to their resolution create a lack of confidence. We believe that the international legal system should be strengthened," the minister said.

Georgian Deputy Minister for Reintegration, Dmitry Mandjavidze, said GUAM countries should have their own priorities in resolving conflicts.

"The conflicts in Georgia will find their solution in line with the country's territorial integrity and the interests of all ethnic groups involved. "There is a Russian factor in the resolution of conflicts. But the interference of any foreign factor here is unacceptable," Mandjavidze said. He added that no talks were under way in his country to settle the conflicts and that the process "has to be started from a scratch".

Moldovan Deputy Minister for Reintegration Ion Stavila said the world community was not paying enough attention to the settlement of conflicts. "Compared to other conflicts, solving the Dnestr problem would be easier, but no one is doing that. GUAM should therefore strive to achieve results on its own."

But local pundits are somewhat skeptical about the prospect of solving conflicts by holding such conferences.

Political analyst Ilgar Mammadov says the only factor bringing together the GUAM states is their problems with Russia.

"Their gathering in such a format primarily riles Russia. From this standpoint, no matter what is being said at the conference, in my opinion, the format itself is more significant than the essence of the event," he said.

But another analyst, Rasim Musabayov, says that by coordinating effort, GUAM is capable of drawing international attention. "The group's member states have the needed resources for this."

Recommendations on the settlement of conflicts will be adopted in conclusion of the two-day conference. But experts charge that these recommendations could yield results only provided that they are followed by further steps and applied in practice. Some critics say that GUAM has already convened in the past to moot outstanding issues but then hushed up and backtracked.

Three years have gone by since the GUAM states submitted to the UN General Assembly a draft resolution on international support to the resolution of the Garabagh, Abkhazia and Dnestr conflicts based on the territorial integrity principle, but the document has yet to be put on discussion. Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov does not rule out that the sides will consider the issue following the Baku conference.

GUAM was established in Strasbourg in 1999. Uzbekistan entered the organization later, but seceded four years thereafter. At a summit in the Ukrainian capital Kiev in 2006, the member states declared GUAM as the Organization For Democracy and Economic Development.

The group's next summit will take place in Tbilisi, Georgia July 1-2