The Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), discussed the prospects for peace in the South Caucasus earlier today (9 February).
Zas stressed that there was cause for “cautious optimism”, in light of the stabilisation of the region since the signing of the trilateral agreements and the deployment of the Russian military contingency, highlighting the fact that the bloodshed had stopped.
Nevertheless, he admitted that were still “hotbeds of tension—and they are on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. I was there, I saw with my own eyes what was happening. But, in fact, there is no border as such. There is a line of contact, bases, observation points. There are skirmishes from time to time. It should not be like that”.
The head of the CSTO said that the next task was the process of delimitation and demarcation of the border, which he admitted would be a “complex amount of work”, but which would strengthen the security of the region. He concluded by adding that “there is a cautious optimism that an entire era of war is coming to an end and another era is beginning. I can be wrong about optimism, but in any case, the steps that are being taken now to establish peace should be welcomed”.