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EU needs to be neutral actor between Armenia, Azerbaijan

21 May 2015 16:00 (UTC+04:00)
EU needs to be neutral actor between Armenia, Azerbaijan

By Sara Rajabova

The EU will need to be a neutral actor between Armenia and Azerbaijan to hopefully in future play a positive role in conflict resolution and before that in confidence building measures.

Jos Boonstra, the head of the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia program at FRIDE and coordinator of CASCADE Work Package 8 on The Caucasus and the Wider Neighborhood made the remark in an interview with AzerNews while commenting on the European Union’s position on the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“As the EU does barely foresees in a mediating component at the moment I could foresee two roles for the EU,” Boonstra noted.

He said the EU could deploy its peacekeeping mission after settlement of the conflict and assist Armenia and Azerbaijan in implementing reforms in their respective security sector.

“In the event that in the future an agreement is reached over Nagorno-Karabakh, the EU could consider deploying a Common Security and Defense Policy peacekeeping mission if all parties agree. In the short run the EU can hopefully contribute to reform the security sector and rule of law initiatives that will help Armenia and Azerbaijan have effective control over their armed forces and other security agencies; and in that sense lessen the chance of conflict,” Boonstra said.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict which emerged after Armenia registered illegitimate territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. This led to a war in the early 1990s. The Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.

Commenting on the Riga summit of Eastern Partnership and expectations from this summit to produce any mechanism for the conflict solutions, Boonstra said this is indeed the biggest shortcoming of the European Neighborhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership in Eastern Europe.

“The EU’s role in the region barely plays a security and peace-building role. Besides two CSDP missions in Moldova (on border management) and Georgia (on border control) and a EU Special Representative that is active in the Geneva talks between Russia and Georgia, the EU does not play a security role,” he said.

He went on to say that “in relation to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict it is France that is part of the OSCE Minsk Group, not the EU as such.”

“Europe' security role is taken up foremost through its member states, NATO and the OSCE and less so through the EU,” Boonstra said.

Speaking further about the ENP, the expert noted that the ENP is currently under review in the European Union, in that the policy which is already 10 years old will need serious revisions.

“The southern component through the Mediterranean Dialogue needs to be made more effective in the wake of the Arab Spring, especially since it seems to have withered while the Eastern component – the EaP – is in trouble,” Boonstra said.

He said with reference to the EaP, which stands central in Riga these days, that several matters are crucial.

“How to develop relations with Eastern European neighbors in the wake of Russian revisionism and aggression, foremost in Ukraine? How to avoid a split between countries that signed an Association Agreement with the EU – Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – countries that have opted for the Eurasian Economic Union lead by Russia – Armenia and Belarus – and Azerbaijan which chose to be non-aligned,” Boonstra questioned.

He underlined the fact that the EU’s EaP should help develop its Eastern partners while bringing integration and unity - not creating new dividing lines.

Azerbaijan is one of the participating countries in the EU program on "Eastern Partnership" adopted on the initiative of Poland and Sweden and approved at the EU summit in Brussels in 2008.

The goal of the program is the rapprochement between the EU and Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus. The program envisages a significant increase in the level of political interaction, large integration of former Soviet republics into the EU economy, increasing the volume of financial aid to them and strengthening energy security.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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