Stepanakert offers "information armistice" to journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan

Gegam Bagdasaryan, President of the Stepanakert Press Club and editor-in-chief of the analytical monthly "Analyticon", made an appeal addressed to the heads of mass media and journalistic organizations of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh urging them to stop their hostile actions in the information domain starting from the midnight on May 12, 2010, - the day of the armistice concluded between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

"I'm sure that termination of the information war will create favourable conditions for continuation of the peaceful dialogue, promote achievement of realistic compromises and mutually acceptable decisions on Karabakh settlement and rapproachement of the positions of media parties on the issue," runs Mr Bagdasaryan's appeal.

In the opinion of the editor, "the information war is willy-nilly playing the role of some kind of artillery preparation and promotes inevitable force outcome with catastrophic consequences for the whole South-Caucasian region," consequently, such publications "offend the honour and dignity of the whole nation and its individual representatives, and kindle interethnic enmity and war propaganda."

Independent journalist Naira Airumyan notes that "it was precious that the appeal to stop the information war arrived from Karabakh." "I hope journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan will join the appeal," she said.