The European Union (EU) on January 23 established a civilian mission with the task of participating in road monitoring border many upheavals between Armenia and Azerbaijan, thereby strengthening the bloc’s role in the South Caucasus.
The EU expressed hope to “contribute to stability in the border regions of Armenia, build trust on the ground and ensure an enabling environment for normalization efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
“The decision to establish the EU Mission in Armenia opens a new stage in the EU’s engagement plan in the South Caucasus,” said Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The initiative was launched by Armenia and expanded into a mission of 40 EU experts responsible for monitoring the area along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan for the last two months of 2022.
According to the announcement of EUthe new mission will operate for two years and will conduct “regular patrols and status reports.”
[Nga sẵn sàng triển khai quân tới biên giới Armenia-Azerbaijan]
Meanwhile, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan began his visit to Brussels (Belgium) from January 23-25 to attend meetings with Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens. Stoltenberg, Mr. Borrell and other senior EU officials.
As planned, Foreign Minister Mirzoyan will speak before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, in which he will address issues such as stability and security in the South Caucasus, the outbreak of humanitarian crisis in Nagorny-Karabakh as a result of the blockade of the Lachin corridor, the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the interaction between Yerevan and the EU.
Relations between Yerevan and Baku have become strained over their control of Nagorny-Karabakh, an area deep in the southwestern part of Azerbaijan, but whose population is majority Armenian and wants to be annexed to Armenia. .
This issue has caused a sovereignty dispute between the two neighbors, culminating in a war that lasted from February 1988 to May 1994.
Despite the 1994 ceasefire agreement and subsequent peace talks, conflict still occurs here. Since 2008, Azerbaijan and Armenia have held dozens of high-level meetings to resolve this issue, but have not yet found a suitable mediation solution.
In May 2022, the two countries announced that they had established a border delimitation committee, and this move is considered a step towards the goal of ending the dispute in the Nagorny-Karabakh region soon.
In September 2022, conflict flared up again, killing 286 people on both sides. Yerevan and Baku signed a ceasefire on September 14 after two days of fighting.
Minh Tuan-Trung Kien (VNA/Vietnam+)