Russian analyst: EU mission in Armenia turns into NATO mission

"If the Russian foreign minister mentions that other NATO member states will join the [EUMA] mission, it means that there is such data and there is a rough idea of what the West's vision is and what tasks this mission is facing."

As Caliber.Az reports, Russian political expert Fyodor Lukyanov said this in a conversation with Armenian media, commenting on the risks of expanding the EU mission to the NATO mission in Armenia.

According to him, the EU civilian observers are naturally something else, while the expansion of its composition, the list of member states, and the more so the attraction of observers from NATO member states is a completely different situation because Russia and Iran have hostile relations with NATO.

"This is certainly a more problematic status than the presence of European observers alone. As we see, neither Iran nor Russia is trying to turn this into a serious problem in relations, but Russia is already raising this issue, drawing attention to it.

“In this case the packaging is important, nevertheless these are EU civilian observers, perhaps they just want to ensure the presence of some NATO countries in the form of participation of various countries. But the tradition of Iranian diplomacy is different, the public part of diplomacy is too small, so it is hard to predict how Iran will react and what issues it will raise.

“I am sure that it will affect Iran and this issue will be raised. Iran's comments on the inadmissibility of changes in the geopolitics of the region also relate to this," Fyodor Lukyanov said.

The latter believes that the main risk is that the competition in the region is intensifying as NATO's presence in the region is increasing along with the opposing countries.

"Judging by the comments of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the state of Armenian-Russian relations, Armenia has not done any work with the Russian side in this regard, but it is possible that they worked with Iran, thus neutralizing some sharp reactions. That's an assumption. But, naturally, in conclusion, the involvement of NATO member countries in the mission further intensifies geopolitical competition in the region, this is the mildest description of the created situation," the political expert said.