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Qabil Ashirov

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The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the decision of the European Council to establish the EU Monitoring Mission in Armenia, Azernews reports.

The Foreign Ministry stated that such an engagement must not be exploited for derailing the normalization process between Azerbaijan and Armenia, including in the context of the border delimitation process that should be carried out exclusively on a bilateral basis.

“It must be ensured that the deployment of the EU mission in Armenia duly takes into account the legitimate interests of Azerbaijan, and such an undertaking by the EU takes place in a manner that does not undermine mutual trust and confidence,” the ministry added.

Furthermore, Azerbaijan expects that in the process of deliberations on the EU mission, utmost care will be exercised to draw necessary lessons from past experience.

The Foreign Ministry noted that the EU’s engagement in the territory of Armenia had started with the deployment of a civilian monitoring capacity following the agreement reached at the Prague meeting on October 6, 2022, among the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, France, and the EU Council president. Azerbaijan agreed to such an undertaking with the understanding that it will help the normalization process.

“Despite clearly defined parameters and purposes of the two-month-long period mission agreed upon at the highest level, the actual deployment of the monitoring capacity was accompanied by serious deviations from the agreements reached in Prague, following biased approaches taken by some EU member-states. This, in turn, affected the overall trust as regards the credibility and transparency of the decision-making within the EU.

As a matter of fact, the presence of EU monitoring capacity in Armenia coincided with increased attempts by Armenia to derail the normalization process in all its three tracks, including torpedoing the trilateral meeting of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the EU Council, with groundless conditions. As such, initial expectations that the EU mission would contribute to taking the normalization agenda forward were undermined,” the ministry said.

According to the ministry, following the end of a two-month-long civilian EU mission in Armenia and given the interest of the EU to continue its presence, Azerbaijan has engaged in good faith in consultations with the EU and conveyed its assessment, expectations, and concerns clearly and in a transparent manner.

In a series of consultations held at various levels with EU representatives, it has been communicated by Azerbaijan that engagement of the EU in Armenia through a mission must not serve as a pretext for Armenia to evade the fulfillment of undertaken commitments.

“Exploitation of such a presence of the EU against the already existing dialogue mechanisms is detrimental, and must be avoided,” the ministry concluded.

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