Release of All Prisoners, Cooperation on Fate of Missing Persons ‘Decisive Elements’ for Peace – EU Envoy

YEREVAN — The release of all prisoners, cooperation on the fate of missing persons and on demining efforts are “decisive elements” for lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Toivo Klaar, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia has said.

“To me the entire normalization process is about people and therefore about humanitarian affairs,” Klaar told JAMnews. “However, if you mean the specific question of prisoners and missing persons, then these are of course key elements as well,” he said when asked on the importance of humanitarian affairs for lasting peace up to this point.

Most of the draft peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan has already been agreed upon and political will is required to finalize it, Klaar stated.

Expressing a hope that “with political will and continued effort by all sides the page of enmity and violence can now finally be turned once and for all, for the benefit of all the peoples of the region,” Klaar stressed that the EU had welcomed the December 7, 2023 joint statement by Armenia and Azerbaijan on releases of detainees and the holding of the COP29 climate change summit in Baku in November 2024, as well as the more recent Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements on border delimitation and demarcation of April 19, 2024 with their subsequent implementation.

Reflecting on his decade-long experience in the region, Klaar, who completes his mission as the EU special representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia in September to take up the position of EU ambassador to Uzbekistan, emphasized that the international community would need to remain engaged both politically and financially also after the signature of a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“But the onus, as now, will remain on the leaderships in Yerevan and Baku to not stop half way, but to continue all the way towards a full normalization of relations, not only between governments, but also between peoples,” he added.