“This statement could have been made even without having observers; that an incident occurred near Tegh village, and there are victims on both sides. I want to understand whether those reports and observations made by the EU civil observers are in any way reflected in the EU’s positions. And if there is a reason for not being reflected, what is it?”, speaking to Aravot.am, referring to the EU report regarding the Azerbaijani aggression in Tegh; this is the opinion of Stepan Safaryan, Head of the Armenian Institute for International and Security Affairs. He said it is clear that the incident has two sides; it is clear that one side fired or one side violated, and all this happened.
However, Stepan Safaryan is interested in how much this is the statement of the EU spokesperson, which is not a low statement. It is interesting how much the report of the EU observers influences this statement. According to Stepan Safaryan, the breath of the EU observation mission should have been felt in this statement. To our question of whether this statement does not give rise to several concerns, especially the fact that nothing is reflected here about the observations of the EU observation mission, our interlocutor answered: “It’s good that the EU reacted; it’s good that it was not ignored, could be dismissed as an incident. It can be seen that the EU is aware of the danger of the incident and that the EU is aware of the problem of the so-called dispute over the border provoked by Azerbaijan. But, excuse me, from the beginning, they allowed to violate the border, and the border violation by Azerbaijan remained without consequences. Now they say to eliminate the border violation yourself if they see that Azerbaijan does not want to. Now, if he does not have that desire, and if an incident occurs in the case of an already violated border, in that case, the conclusion of those observers would say who is provoking the situation”.
We wondered if all this does not cast doubt on the effectiveness of that mission; Stepan Safaryan answered: “I see that there is a field of work and there is a need for explanations. If the authorities of Armenia know the answers to these questions, I said, they can answer those questions themselves, how the speaker is affected in terms of presenting the EU’s so-called official point of view. If there is another announcement and if this is a preliminary announcement, the speaker reacts quickly until the study results are out; this is a different matter. But if this is the final position, the question arises: what does the report of the EU observation mission change about clarifying the EU’s position, because such a position could have been expressed even without having an observation mission.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
