EU extends monitors' mission in Armenia for next two years

European Union member states has extended EU monitoring mission along Armenia’s international border with Azerbaijan for next two years despite official Baku’s demand for its immediate withdrawal.

The proposal to extend the mission was recently made by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas and approved on Wednesday, according to Armenian press.

RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak reported that the Brussels-based ambassadors of the 27 EU nations, who endorsed Kallas’s proposal, also decided to keep the mission’s mandate and size unchanged.

According to the mission's representatives in Armenia, this decision is expected to receive formal approval from the EU member states' foreign ministers in the near future.

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan recently stated that Armenia will need the EU Mission in his country as long as delimitation of the border with Azerbaijan is going on.

At the same time, Moscow accused the EU monitors of spying under the auspices of the observation mission and destabilizing the situation in the region.

The EU observer mission in Armenia is spying on Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, further heightening tensions in the region, stated Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova adding “this has been factually confirmed."

Baku also insists on withdrawal of EU observers and called the deployment of monitors from third countries as “a factor of concern."

"The mission was supposed to be short-term, but now it has turned into a permanent one, with extended mandate and composition. We see no need in involvement of any third party in the delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is carried out in a peaceful and mutually agreed condition. We don’t consider EU mission as contributor to the peace consolidation in the region, it is factor of concern” – said Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President Ilham Aliyev.

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