The European Commission and the leaders of the member states will have the final word on both the number and the powers of the mission after the endorsement by the Foreign Affairs Council came on Monday. Presumably, the final decision will be made in December.
Hailing the decision, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovannisian on Tuesday said that the move will enhance the stability of the country’s restive borders with Azerbaijan.
The EU mission in Armenia (EUMA) currently consisting of 100 or so observers and experts was launched at the request of the Armenian government in late 2022 with the stated aim of preventing or reducing ceasefire violations along the border with Azerbaijan. Russia, Armenia’s increasingly estranged ally, has opposed it from the outset, saying that it is part of broader Western efforts to drive Moscow out of the South Caucasus.
The Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh in September this year has raised more fears in Yerevan that Azerbaijan will invade Armenia to open a land corridor to its Nakhichevan exclave. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian urged Western powers to prevent Baku from “provoking a new war in the region” when he addressed the European Parliament in October.
Two weeks ago the EUMA said its members had already carried out more than a thousand patrols.
Hovannisian said that the expansion of the EUMA would enable more active work related to border monitoring.
“The decision is to expand the number of observers, to strengthen their capabilities, which will make it possible to carry out more active work related to observation, to submit relevant reports to Brussels and member states -- something that we definitely believe will further strengthen stability at our borders. We don’t have numbers yet, but we believe that an adequate number should be provided in order to carry out the works more effectively,” said Armenia’s deputy foreign minister.
While officially no figures have been published yet, Arman Yeghoyan, the pro-government head of the European Integration Commission in Armenia’s National Assembly, said he expected it to be a significant increase. He said that should the final decision be made, more European observers are likely to engage in patrolling the borders of Armenia already next year.
As for whether a military component could be added to the EUMA, Yeghoyan said: “At the moment, we are talking about the expansion of the border-monitoring mission with the existing mandate, that is, the expansion of the number of personnel and its duration.”
The decision by the EU to beef up its border-monitoring mission in Armenia is likely to irk Russia as well as Azerbaijan which has already criticized EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell over his statement concerning Baku.
After the Foreign Affairs Council’s meeting on Monday Borrell, in particular, warned Azerbaijan against “any violation of Armenian territorial integrity” that he said would be “unacceptable” and would “have severe consequences for the quality of our relations.”
In a statement issued today Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry described Borrell’s accusations as “absolutely inadequate and unacceptable”, claiming that they “deliberately distort the current realities in the region.”
Azerbaijan’s ministry also claimed that “the EU’s efforts to arm Armenia are encouraging the policy of drawing the South Caucasus into new confrontations.” “Responsibility for this also lies with the EU,” the statement concluded.
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