Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) civilian mission © EUMM
Ten days ago, Transitions magazine published my latest on the European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA). Though the monitoring mission continues to be appreciated and welcomed in the country, there still remain overly high expectations of what is a small presence along a 1,000 kilometre border with no power or ability to deter any armed incidents or skirmishes.
Indeed, on the day of publication, four Armenian and three Azerbaijani soldiers were killed near the village of Tegh. There are also signs that Moscow is again pressing Yerevan to also accept a mission from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
“The appearance of the EU representatives in the border regions of Armenia […] can only bring geopolitical confrontation to the region and exacerbate existing contradictions,” the Russian Foreign Ministry warned sternly in a statement following the European Union’s decision in January to deploy a 100-strong mission to monitor Armenia’s volatile border with Azerbaijan.
Russia, which has supplied arms to both the Armenian and Azerbaijani armies, deployed a peacekeeping force after brokering a cease-fire to end hostilities in 2020 after Azerbaijan recaptured much of the territory taken by Armenian-backed forces in the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s.
“The EU’s attempts to gain a foothold in Armenia at any cost and to squeeze Russia’s mediation efforts could damage the fundamental interests of Armenians and Azerbaijanis in their aspirations for a return to peaceful development in the region,” the Foreign Ministry statement continued in a sign that Armenia’s perceived flirtation with the West continues to irk Moscow while the EU and United States attempt to normalize Armenia-Azerbaijan relations and facilitate a peace treaty.
[…]
It appears that Russia will not remain passive while the EU, and the United States in its parallel but supportive track, persist in efforts to broker a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The opposition in Armenia and some Armenian analysts, however, believe such an agreement would set the scene for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Karabakh by the end of 2025 (something that Baku also appears keen to achieve through a relevant mechanism included in the 2020 ceasefire agreement).
Rather than contribute to resolution of the conflict, they argue, increased geopolitical rivalry in the region could lead to unpredictable consequences such as a new war but this time within the territory of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, the depopulation of Karabakh, or even a larger regional conflict involving Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the West even if only by proxy.
“Armenia should not think that EUMA is sent by the EU to freeze the conflict and to provide it with time to strengthen its military while acting as a buffer against a potential Azerbaijani attack,” Yerevan-based regional analyst Benyamin Poghosyan said in an interview with the author in February. He explained that Yerevan should also refrain from public criticism of Russia’s peacekeeping force in Karabakh as well as its general presence in the region.
In an attempt to reach a compromise, at the end of March, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, and they proposed holding a trilateral meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in the near future, following the postponement of one planned for the end of December.
In addition, Lavrov mentioned that a CSTO mission could be dispatched to Armenia within a few days if the Armenian government were to finally accept this offer, a proposal that Yerevan has still not formally rejected.
The full article can be read here.
For more on EUMCAP and EUMA see my previous posts here.
