On Moscow meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian cultural figures

Baku/27.12.21/Turan: Azerbaijani and Armenian cultural figures met in Moscow last Friday. The meeting was arranged through the mediation of the Russian President's representative for intercultural cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoy.

The organizers of the meeting did not disclose its goals and results. As for the participants themselves, the Azerbaijani side provided no appropriate information to the public.

Note that it was the Armenian sources that provided information about  Azerbaijani participants: rector of the Music Academy Farhad Badalbeyli, rector of the University of Languages Kamal Abdulla, film critic Ayaz Salayev and rector of the Architecture and Construction University Gulchohra Mammadova.

The Armenian side was represented by rector of Yerevan Medical University Armen Muradyan, head of the Puppet Theater Ruben Babayan, director of the Stanislavsky Theater Marianna Mkhitaryan and director Harutyun Khachatryan.

According to the Armenian sources, the meeting lasted two and a half hours.   No political issues were touched upon. The sides talked about humanitarian problems following the 44-day war.

in particular, the Armenian side said that the return of prisoners was necessary to normalize relations. The Azerbaijani side raised the issue of maps of minefields.

From all the information available, we can conclude that the meeting did not yield any significant results.  Each side repeated what the politicians of the two countries refer to.

The participants of the meeting did not raise issues to be addressed by the intelligentsia of the two countries, specifically, how to live further, how to build relations?

It must be admitted that these are conceptual issue to be discussed by representatives of civil society and peacemakers. However, nothing like this has happened since the end of the war. -02B-