Armenia and Azerbaijan: what can societies do when political judgement errs?

Following his conviction for a brutal murder in 2004, Ramil Safarov's presidential pardon is a new low-point for those working towards a peaceful resolution of Armenia and Azerbaijan's conflict over Nagorny Karabakh. Laurence Broers analyses the impact of this case and looks at how projects like Dialogue Through Film must try and rebuild the trust that has unraveled.

Ethnic stereotypes are particularly hard to shift in a context where people cannot talk to each other. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Armenian and Azerbaijani societies live in different worlds, living by their own separate interpretations of the conflict dividing them.

Extract from the article

This article was originally published on openSecurity, a section of openDemocracy.