Bilateral track between Armenia and Azerbaijan produced concrete positive outcomes over past months – EU

YEREVAN, AUGUST 5, ARMENPRESS. The EU stands ready to again step in as a facilitator between Armenia and Azerbaijan when requested by the parties, Special Representative Toivo Klaar has said.

“It has been a mixed picture,” Toivo Klaar, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, told JAMnews when asked to describe the developments between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the past few years.  “We have seen better moments, and I do hope that we are living some of them now, but we have also seen a lot of violence with many innocent victims. The 44-day war in 2020, the various armed clashes and larger military operations, the situation around the Lachin corridor, and not least the mass exodus of the Karabakh Armenians in September 2023 were among the most difficult situations I had to deal with. I will always remember the exchanges I had with the victims of this violence and the stories that I heard from those who faced similar hardships in the 1990s. At the same time we also have had more positive developments. We have more dialogue now between Baku and Yerevan, which also the EU has contributed to, I believe. We have discussions aimed at finalising a peace agreement. It is my hope that with political will and continued effort by all sides the page of enmity and violence can now finally be turned once and for all, for the benefit of all the peoples of the region.”

Klaar added that the EU has helped create a certain framework for Armenia and Azerbaijan in the talks.

“Before the 2020 war, the EU played a much less visible role,” he said when asked to assess the EU’s mediation role. “Our – my – task was mainly to act in support of the efforts undertaken by the main international format, the Minsk Group, and its co-chairs. After the 2020 war the EU, mostly at the request of the parties themselves, started to play a more prominent role, which culminated with the series of high-level trilateral meetings between President Michel, Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan. I believe that these meetings – in addition to efforts undertaken by other international actors – provided the two leaders with the necessary space to reach some common understandings on the main issues at stake: the peace treaty, border delimitation and demarcation, the reopening of regional economic and transport links, and humanitarian issues. We had six meetings of the leaders in Brussels between 14 December 2021 and 15 July 2023, we had numerous high-level telephone exchanges, and we organised meetings of the security advisors here. Combined with my visits to Baku and Yerevan, and the wider region, I believe that the EU helped create a certain framework, based on which the leaders could give the Foreign Ministers, the Deputy Prime Ministers and other key actors guidance, and steer for further negotiations. Over the past months, the bilateral track between Armenia and Azerbaijan has managed to produce concrete positive outcomes. The EU has welcomed all these developments, be it the 7 December 2023 joint statement on releases of detainees and COP29, or the more recent agreements on border delimitation and demarcation of 19 April 2024, with their subsequent implementation. The latter are based precisely on the common understandings that had been reached earlier with our involvement, for instance on the unambiguous acceptance of the 1991 Almaty Declaration as the basis for the delimitation of the bilateral border. Finally, even though we have seen more bilateral meetings recently, the EU stands ready to again step in as a facilitator when requested by the parties.”