Why Azerbaijan Seeks to Close the OSCE Office in Yerevan

• 01.18.2017, 12:20
•  Europe,  Region,  World,  Armenia

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The OSCE chair, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz plans to visit Azerbaijan in the coming days, where he is going to discuss with the leadership of Azerbaijan the relations of the OSCE with the country, Azerbaijani media informs. It should be noted that these relations are quite tense because Azerbaijan has blocked the OSCE's decision to extend its activity in Yerevan for another 12 months. Official Baku notes that it is connected with OSCE's politico-military activities.

"Baku demanded that the funds allocated to the Yerevan office should not be used for the implementation of activities in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. However, in recent times OSCE Armenia got involved in demining action programs in Karabakh and other occupied regions, which applies to post-conflict activities," Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmet Hajiyev said.

It should be noted that here we are talking about the support of the OSCE Office for Humanitarian Demining and Expertise Center of Armenia. It has been conducting demining works in areas bordering Azerbaijan and Armenia, not Karabakh conflict zone.

Azerbaijan’s groundless argument has also been stressed during the discussions at the meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on December 31, where the chairman in response to objections of Azerbaijani delegation said that under the German presidency of the OSCE a special delegate was sent to the Office in Yerevan.

"Based on the facts presented, we estimate that the activity which is the subject for discussion is not inconsistent with the Office's mandate," said the chairman.

However the Azerbaijani side did not give up. Despite the misinformation of Baku, in fact there are no contradictions on the activities of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, therefore Baku is solving quite other problems with this step.

It is not excluded that trying to close the OSCE office in Yerevan, Baku tries to weaken OSCE's role in the region, thus weakening the positions of the OSCE MG as well. It is not a secret that for many years Azerbaijan has tried to change the format of Karabakh conflict settlement.

However, experts point out that by the closure of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, Armenia- OSCE relations will not suffer largely, as they have always been at a high level, instead,  OSCE relations with Baku will only get worse.