Ambassador Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Armenia welcomes UN unwavering support to OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs

YEREVAN, AUGUST 20, 2015. Armenia welcomes UN cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty (CSTO) and looks forward to UN presence and observance of a combined exercise of the CSTO Peacekeeping Forces, entitled “Co-operation 2015”, to be held in Armenia in early autumn. Armenpress reports that the abovesaid was announced by Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Ambassador, Permanent UN Representative of the Republic of Armenia at Security Council Open Debate on the Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Regional Organizations and Contemporary Challenges of Global Security.

“As a member of the CSTO, Armenia will continue to deliver on its commitment to forge stronger co-operation with the United Nations to contribute to international peace and to the UN peacekeeping capacities. As a troop contributing state, Armenia gathered considerable national experience in its engagements in NATO led peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Previously Armenian peacekeepers have been engaged also in Iraq. Over the past year Armenia generated new and valuable experience in a UN led operation in Lebanon. Armenia has been investing its experience in the strengthening of the preparedness for peacekeeping within the CSTO”, noted Ambassador Mnatsakanyan.

As member of numerous regional organizations, the OSCE and the CSTO amongst them, Armenia benefits strongly from the institutional strength and effectiveness of the European regional and sub-regional landscape of co-operation, including in the fields of political dialogue, security, human rights, democratic transformation and the strengthening of the rule of law, trade and economy, culture and youth. In reference to maintenance of international peace Mnatsakanyan noted that peaceful resolution of conflicts on the basis of the norms and principles of international law without exception are of specific significance, given the on-going negotiations for the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict within the internationally supported format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmanship.

“This format by far is the most effective one for our particular case on several accounts, not least due to its capacity to sustain focus on a compromise solution, to defuse tensions and to prevent escalation. Armenia welcomes the unwavering and continued support of the UN system and the Secretary General to the established format of negotiations and to the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.”, stated Zohrab Mnatsakanyan