European political tourists long for Armenian brandy ...and rush to visit the region

Armenia, defeated in a 44-day war, does not abandon its attempts to restore (no matter in what format) positions of the senseless mediator-player OSCE pushed out of the South Caucasus. And now, at the invitation of the Armenian government, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is sending a so-called "needs assessment team" to the country in a few days' time.

What "needs" are in question becomes clear from the text on the organisation's official website. The purpose of the visit, it says, is "to assess the situation in certain border areas, based on the mandate and experience of the OSCE within the framework of its comprehensive security concept."

A technical team, consisting of international experts and representatives of the OSCE secretariat, is said to visit areas of Armenia along the notional Armenian-Azerbaijani border and consult with relevant national and local sides, as well as international partners on the ground.

In other words, this type of 'international monitoring' will continue along the well-learned and quite useless scheme patented in its time by the OSCE Minsk Group. It is clear that the format of the OSCE mission suits Armenia very well; it does not feel comfortable on other platforms - they are more objective about the events and the claims of Armenians there. However, the fact is that the resuscitation of the organization's mission, as indicated by "needs", in any form, is a ridiculous step and certainly not conducive to the normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In addition, there is already a 40-strong EU civilian observer mission in Armenia, which operates along the notional Armenian-Azerbaijani border and takes selfies. But let's leave the effectiveness of these missionaries to their conscience, as they say, we'll have to wait and see. But why, one may ask, when there is already a group of Europeans to invite OSCE officials? After all, in fact, the supposed border visitors with their "opinion polls" are practically the same outdated format.

It is illogical and irrational. Although, when the Armenian leadership presents something seemingly irrational, later on, it turns out to be another catch, not so senseless for Armenians.

Naturally, Azerbaijan, through its Foreign Ministry, has already expressed its position on this issue.

"Regarding the dispatch of a team from the Secretariat of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Armenia, called the 'OSCE needs assessment mission', it should be noted that the issue of such a mission has never been discussed by any of the OSCE collective decision-making bodies, and no decisions have been taken in this regard. Moreover, any group called the 'OSCE needs assessment mission Armenia' has no mandate from the OSCE and cannot be linked in any way with the OSCE, nor will any of its findings or reports be accepted as OSCE documents," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry also said that the unilateral initiative put forward by Armenia is nothing but a personal visit of a group of several states and any result of such a visit will be assessed accordingly.

It is a good place to reminisce and go back to the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group. It is striking that it has not helped to resolve even one aspect of the Karabakh conflict, let alone the situation as a whole. "The mission has been 'settling' the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict for 30 years, and everyone knows the result. The effectiveness of the OSCE's mediation services is more than evident from the fact that since 2014 the organisation has been trying to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. The whole world knows what it led to.

There is another fact. Throughout the Karabakh conflict (30 years!), the OSCE has never sent observers to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The group's activities have been limited to the distribution of travel and tourism tours to its co-chairs. And these co-chairs have always been in solidarity with the Armenian leadership on all events and actions of the conflicting sides. When it came to Azerbaijan's position, however, the Minsk Group was limited to stereotypical statements. From time to time, the co-chairs came to the region, held meetings, and urged the sides to make peace, but that was the end of their mission. The work of the group was reduced to pure formalism, and it was not for nothing that its members of all ranks were called "political tourists" in Baku.

Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity militarily, proving that it could defend its own sovereignty. The OSCE had nothing to do with this grand victory. Maybe this victory even bothered it for a long time. And today, the emergence of the mission of this organisation is absolutely unnecessary for Azerbaijan.

We perfectly remember July 2020, when the Armenian armed forces tried to invade the Tovuz region, and the OSCE, ignoring all signs of a planned attack on the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, did not qualify Armenia as an aggressor country. However, the reluctance of the organisation to impede the occupation policy of the Armenian side was evident even before the Tovuz provocation. The co-chairs forgave the Armenian authorities for any treachery. The principled passivity of the format and the status quo with the occupation of 20% of Azerbaijani territories suited Armenia, and the OSCE prolonged this position indefinitely. The mission has always bet on Armenia and indulged Yerevan, which has only slowed down the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement.

However, times and realities are different now, and if Armenia wants to continue its games with the OSCE in the form of a mission rather than a group, well, as they say, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". Let the various missionaries wander between Armenian positions with feigned indignation, Azerbaijan does not care - it revives its Karabakh, and this is a huge and multi-year work, a long way even at high speed. And if the OSCE has nothing to do, and the "missionaries" need to work off their tourist vouchers and per diems for all sorts of needs, then they can engage in revanchist aspirations in Armenia - maybe they will succeed in persuading the leaders of this movement in between drinking of free brandy...