Azatutyun.am. The European Union is considering providing “non-lethal” military aid to Armenia, the head of the EU Delegation in Yerevan, Vassilis Maragos, confirmed on Tuesday.
Maragos said that the EU will send later this month or early next year a “technical mission” to Armenia that will assess the country’s security needs and come up with “concrete proposals” regarding such aid.
“We are going to present details in the coming weeks,” the diplomat told journalists. He did not specify items which the 27-nation bloc could deliver to the Armenian military.
The issue was apparently on the agenda of last week’s visit to Yerevan by a team of officials from the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, and External Action Service. An EU statement on their trip said they looked into “possibilities to deepen and strengthen EU-Armenia relations in all dimensions,” including defense and security.
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“The EU will, for instance, further explore non-lethal support to the Armenian military via the European Peace Facility,” added the statement.
The facility is a special fund designed to boost EU partners’ defense capacity. Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian revealed in July that Yerevan requested “technical assistance” from the fund but was rebuffed by Brussels.
Earlier in November, the foreign ministers of EU member states approved a proposal to expand a monitoring mission deployed by the bloc along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan in February. It remains unclear how many additional monitors will be sent to the country.
The mission currently consisting of 100 or so observers and experts was launched at the request of the Armenian government and with the stated aim of preventing or reducing ceasefire violations along the border. Maragos said that it has already succeeded in bolstering the ceasefire regime.
Russia, Armenia’s increasingly estranged ally, has disputed such claims made by other EU officials and echoed by the Armenian government. It says that the mission is part of broader U.S. and EU efforts to drive Moscow out of the South Caucasus.
