EU Ambassadors Approve Extension of Border Monitoring Mission in Armenia

BRUSSELS — Representatives of the European Union member states approved on Wednesday a proposal to extend the EU’s monitoring mission along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan by two years.

The proposal was recently made by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. A spokeswoman for Kallas told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on January 10 that the member states have already welcomed it. She said the extension of the mission will be formalized and announced “in the coming weeks.”

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. It will thus continue to comprise 165 international observers and analysts as well as 44 Armenian staffers.

The mission was launched in February 2023 with the aim of preventing or minimizing ceasefire violations on the Armenian side of the long and heavily militarized border. Its initial two-year mandate ends next month.