Frozen conflicts in GUAM countries to be discussed in Baku

The Basic principles to resolve the conflicts in the territory of GUAM, a regional organization constituted by Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, will be discussed in Baku, Info-Prim-Neo reports, quoting the Azeri Trend News Agency. An international conference in this respect will be held in Baku on April 15-16 under the auspices of the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM, the Kiev-based Secretariat of the organization announced on February 26. In 2007, the GUAM countries submitted a draft resolution on “the frozen conflicts” in GUAM and their results for the international peace, security and development to UN. The four call on the other nations to confirm the territorial integrity of the countries, where separatist-spirited ethic groups have been kept since the Soviet period - Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, Abkhazia and Tzkhinvali (South Osetia) regions of Georgia and the Transnistrian region in Moldova. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have noted in the draft resolution that the lingering conflicts continue to threaten the peace and stability in the respective regions, calling on countries to assist in the conflict resolution processes in the GUAM area. Four post-Soviet republics: Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, established the GUAM format in 1997, during a summit of the presidents of European Union countries in Strasburg. In 1999, Uzbekistan had joined the organization, but four years later left it. In 2006, at the first summit of the organization in Kiev, they decided to announce GUAM as an international organization with a new name; the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development – GUAM. International conflict experts and analysts, as well as officials from the GUAM member-countries are expected at the forthcoming conference.