Azerbaijan decries “third-party role” in Armenia peace talks
- 13 December, 14:41
Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev has voiced concerns over the presence of third-country forces on the border with Armenia. In particular, Hajiyev pointed out to the presence of the EU mission stationed on the two countries’ border in February 2023.
“The EU mission does not contribute to peace in the region. This matter depends on Armenia and Azerbaijan. The presence of a third party only exacerbates tensions. Furthermore, certain European states, under the guise of the EU mission, are pursuing their own interests in Armenia,” Hajiyev stated.
The senior offical said Baku does not see “any need for the deployment of a Europan Union (EU) mission on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. He added that the EU mission was supposed to be short-term according to the quadrilateral meeting held in Prague in October 2022 involving Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, French President Emmanuel Macron, former European Council President Charles Michel, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Furthermore, he stated that the delimitation and demarcation process between the two countries should be conducted “through mutual understanding and peace without the need for a third-party presence.”
"Therefore, strengthening peace is a process directly between Azerbaijan and Armenia and is bilateral in nature. On the contrary, the presence of a third force on the border of the two countries serves to a certain extent to aggravate the situation, and the emergence of the European Union as a security and military factor in the South Caucasus as a whole," Hajiyev went on saying.
Hajiyev expressed concern that the mission had become a continuous process with an expanded composition and geographic mandate.
