EU Countries Approve Monitoring Mission to Armenia-Azerbaijan Border

BRUSSELS — European Union ambassadors agreed on Tuesday to send a civilian mission to Armenia to be deployed along the border with Azerbaijan to build confidence and help them delimit their borders, Radio Azatutyun reported, citing diplomatic sources.

It said the decision was taken at a closed meeting of the political and security commission. Now the details are being discussed: namely, the number of its members, the countries that will delegate them and the specific date of their arrival in Armenia.

Toivo Klaar, European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, spoke about the importance of the mission in the European Parliament Defense Committee the day before.

“The full support of the EU member states as well as of the European Parliament is extremely important for the peaceful efforts of the European Union,” he said.

The agreement to send a civilian mission to Armenia was reached last week in Prague following hours of talks between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, France and the president of the European Council. Baku, which had previously rejected an EU proposal to deploy armed forces on its border with Armenia, did not object to an unarmed mission, while stressing that it would cooperate with it ” to the extent it will be concerned.’

According to earlier reports, the mission will start its work in October, for a maximum period of two months.

Diplomats do not exclude that some of the observers can come to Armenia from Georgia, where the EU mission has been staying since September 2008 after the short Russian-Georgian war.

In the case of Armenia, the observers’ priority will be to prepare reports to support the border delimitation and demarcation commissions.