Russia slams EU over failing to agree with Azerbaijan on deployment of monitoring mission Official MFA statement

The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a special statement commenting on the establishment of an EU civil monitoring mission on the Azerbaijan-Armenia conditional border.

"On January 23, the EU [European Union] Council decided to establish a new EU civilian mission in Armenia for two years. Specific parameters of the EU presence will be defined in the near future. But it is already clear that it will be more ambitious than the EU monitoring mechanism that operated in Armenia from October to December last year,” Caliber.Az reports, citing the statement, which was published on the ministry’s official website.

The ministry wrote that Russia's principled position regarding the consolidation of an extra-regional factor in the Trans-Caucasus has not changed.

“We do not see any 'added value' from the EU 'experts' keeping an eye on the events near the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. If Brussels were genuinely interested in peace in the Transcaucasus, it would have agreed on the working conditions of its mission with Azerbaijan”, it read further.

“EU representatives’ appearance in Armenia’s border regions, which has degenerated into an appendage of the United States and NATO and pursues a confrontational policy in the CIS space, can only bring the geopolitical confrontation to the region and exacerbate existing contradictions. The declared civilian nature of the EU mission should not be misleading either - it is formed within the framework of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy, with all the ensuing consequences,” the statement continued.

“Attempts by the European Union to gain a foothold in Armenia at any cost and to squeeze Russia's mediation efforts could damage the fundamental interests of Armenians and Azerbaijanis in their aspirations to return to the peaceful development of the region. We are convinced that the Russian peacekeeping contingent deployed based on the statement of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on November 9, 2020, as well as the Russian border guards serving on the Armenian borders, will remain a key factor in the stability and security of the region for the foreseeable future. They will respond to the behaviour of the EU observers, taking into account developments on the ground.

We note that in Yerevan, having failed to bring the work on the CSTO mission to its logical conclusion, they have opted for the EU. If the Armenian allies remain interested in engaging the potential of the CSTO, its mission could be rapidly deployed to Armenia.

As before, we believe that the most stable and long-term basis for Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization and the overall improvement of the situation in the region is the steadfast and consistent implementation of the trilateral agreements by the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia dated November 9, 2020, January 11, November 26, 2021 and October 31, 2022, including unblocking all transport and economic links, delimiting and demarcating the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, agreeing on the parameters of a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia and developing three-way cooperation. The Russian Federation is ready to facilitate this in every possible way", the Russian ministry commented.