22:44, 2 March 2023
YEREVAN, MARCH 2, ARMENPRESS. The deployment of the monitoring mission of the European Union in Armenia will play a crucial role in ensuring security and stability in the region, as well as will deliver timely and reliable reports on the current situation to partners in the EU and its member states, the correspondent of ARMENPRESS informs, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced in his opening speech of the discussion at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
“I am pleased to have this opportunity to be here today and address this distinguished audience. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Mr. Ralf Nickel, vice President of the Council, and Director Mr. Guntram Wolff and his team for organizing this event.
Today we are living at a time when not only natural but also geopolitical tectonic shifts are taking place all around the world. Deepening geopolitical instability, growing tensions and unpredictability are weakening the world order and international security system, creating even bigger challenges, especially for a country like Armenia, with democracy, making us more vulnerable in our complicated region.
Dear attendees,
We witnessed the first sprouts of today’s challenges and the collapse of the European security architecture in our region back in 2020 when Azerbaijan unleashed a war against Nagorno-Karabakh.
After the signing of the November 9, 2020 trilateral statement, Azerbaijan not only didn’t abandon its bellicose policies and threats, but also carried out new aggression, this time against the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia in May 2021, November 2021 and September 2022.
During the last aggression – on September 13-14, 2022, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale military attack targeting the military and civilian infrastructure of Armenia using heavy artillery, missile systems, and drones. As a result, the Armenian side had 225 victims, including 3 civilians. More than 150 square kilometers of the sovereign territories of Armenia were occupied.
Today, I wouldn’t like to go deep into the details of the aggressions of 2020, 2021, 2022, but it is impossible to ignore the evidences of multiple cases of torture, mutilation of captured or already dead Armenian servicemen (including servicewomen) and other atrocities by Azerbaijani military forces. The horrible videos of the Azeri militaries committing “ISIS-style” war crimes by executing Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) should be acknowledged and addressed by the international community. Another issue is the engagement of the mercenaries from Syria by Azerbaijan.
During the aggression of September 2022, when the external security system of Armenia didn’t work, we requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that was held on September 15, 2022. During the meeting, the UN Security Council member states noted* that the use of force is totally unacceptable, explicitly named the aggressor – Azerbaijan, highlighted the importance of adherence to the norms of international humanitarian law, emphasizing also the fact that civilian infrastructure on the territory of Armenia was targeted.
An important step towards de-escalation of the situation was a quadrilateral meeting of President Macron, President Michel, President Aliyev and me, in Prague on October 6, 2022, where an agreement was reached on deploying short-term EU monitoring capacity along the international border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
When this mission’s mandate ended on December 19, 2022, at Armenia's request the EU Council made a decision to deploy a new, fully-fledged civilian mission (EUMA) on the territory of the Republic of Armenia for a two-year period.
On behalf of the Government of Armenia, I would like to express our gratitude to the EU and its member states, particularly to the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany for its support to our request. The Mission was launched on 20th February, and I have already met the Head of the Mission, your compatriot with extensive experience in international deployments – Mr. Markus Ritter in Yerevan.
The Mission shall play a crucial role in ensuring security on the ground and stability in the region, as well as timely and reliable reporting on the current situation to our partners in the EU and its member states”, Pashinyan said.