Azerbaijan ceased the OSCE Baku Office work and as if that were not enough, it now tries to halt the OSCE Yerevan Office operation, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan told reporters, when commenting the lack of consensus for extending the term of organization’s mandate in Armenia.
Speaking at a briefing held on Thursday, Kocharyan suggested international structures should pay attention to these actions [of Azerbaijan], adding all decisions in the OSCE are adopted through consensus.
“It appears Azerbaijan has chosen an explicit method of blackmailing, threatening to block the organization’s budget unless it gets whatever it wants. This has been the second case following the agreement on establishing investigation mechanisms, when Azerbaijan disrupted the process, recalling the same threats to block the budget adoption. Thus, these actions by Azerbaijan are not the novelty and require a special treatment by European structures to that country,” Kocharyan reasoned.
The deputy minister, however, acknowledged the existence of the problem in the legal field, saying leaving consensus is quite complex in itself and requires to be taken by consensus. “Nevertheless, there are other leverages to press on a state that placed itself beyond the international law and acts contrary to the adopted rules of the game,” deputy minister said.
