“In fact, Aliyev presented an ultimatum to European structures and EU member states within the recent weeks, even threatened that Azerbaijan would leave the Council of Europe. What is Aliyev’s goal? Two years ago, the Common Declaration adopted at the Riga Summit of the Eastern Partnership affirmed that the summit participants support the OSCE Minsk Group mediators’ efforts in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including their and the presidents’ statements of 2009. Two years ago, immediately after the adoption of this declaration, Aliyev and Mammadyarov left the Riga summit.
Now Azerbaijan is trying to persuade the Eastern Partnership Summit in Brussels to adopt a statement on Nagorno-Karabakh in support of the principle of territorial integrity, that is it seeks to radically change the formulation of Riga summit declaration. I do not think Azerbaijan will succeed, but I have clear information that two EU member states, let me not say which countries those are, are working to achieve that goal of Azerbaijan”, told the Special Envoy of the Republic of Armenia, Armenian National Security Service Head in 1994-95, David Shahnazaryan in an interview with “Aravot”.
We asked Mr. Shahnazaryan whether there are obstacles within the EU member countries to signing a comprehensive and expanded partnership agreement with Armenia.
“Yes, there are. The problem is in the EU and not in Moscow. I already mentioned one of the obstacles. There is also another one, which is considered technical. Three EU Member States (let me not mention those countries again), according to my information, have not translated the text of the agreement into their national languages yet. We need to carry out some work with these countries, which are still delaying the translation of the text”, our interlocutor answered.
Emma GABRIELYAN
