German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock travelled to Armenia's border with the autonomous Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan on Saturday, the second day of a trip to the South Caucasus that comes after Azerbaijan recently seized Nagorno-Karabakh.
Baerbock participated in a patrol by the civilian EU Mission in Armenia (EUMA) around 70 kilometres from the capital Yerevan near the border with Nakhchivan, which neighbours Armenia to the south-west. EUMA is tasked with monitoring the security situation along the Armenian side of the border. Afterwards, Baerbock was planning to talk to refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh at a reception centre.
EUMA began its work at the end of February, employing some 85 staff from 22 EU states by mid-September. Germany currently deploys the largest contingent with 16 members and a federal police officer as head of mission.
The costs of the two-year mission are estimated at just under €31 million ($33.2 million). Baerbock said on Friday that she was in favour of increasing the size of the mission, adding that Germany is ready to become more involved.
Azerbaijan, she said, would also benefit from more security due to the neutral observation mission.
According to German government foreign policy expert Michael Link, Azerbaijan has increasingly threatened to seize Armenian territory, primarily to create a land link to Nakhchivan, which has some 400,000 inhabitants and is located between Armenia and Iran. It also shares a short border with Turkey.
A strip of Armenian territory, some 40 kilometres wide, separates Nakhchivan from Azerbaijan in the east.
The territory was declared autonomous within Azerbaijan at the beginning of the Soviet era. Azerbaijan has long been campaigning for a new road and rail link to its exclave.
At the beginning of October, Azerbaijan's authoritarian government concluded an agreement with Iran on a transport link across Iranian territory. New border crossings into Iran are also planned.
Baerbock, who travelled to Armenia on Friday to discuss the predicament of the more than 100,000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, is scheduled to fly to Baku later on Saturday for talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.
Nagorno-Karabakh is located on Azerbaijani territory, but was inhabited by a majority of Armenians until the most recent fighting. The region broke away from Baku in a civil war in the 1990s with help from Yerevan.
Azerbaijan's army forced the surrender of the local forces in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, prompting more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee the region.
Baerbock on Friday urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to return to the negotiating table and seek a political solution to their decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/german-top-diplomat-visits-armenia-s-border-with-azerbaijani-exclave/ar-AA1jn0kA