Yerevan /Mediamax/. Stefan Meister, the head of the Program for International Order and Democracy at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) believes that Ilham Aliyev’s criticism of the EU is caused by the fact that the new mission "would shrink his options to put Armenia with military means under pressure”.

On January 10 Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev described the sending of a new EU mission to Armenia without Baku’s consent as “a fraud”, noting that it would not improve the security in the region and would affect the Armenian-Azerbaijani talks under the EU auspices.

In an interview with Mediamax, Stefan Meister, commenting on Aliyev’s remarks, said:

“My impression is, that Aliev agreed on pressure to the monitoring mission in Prague and he wanted to end it. While the EU was keeping some technical people on the ground and is discussing a longer term mission, Aliev has no interest in such a mission because it would shrink his options to put Armenia with military means under pressure. That’s why he is unhappy with the EU at moment. But I also think, that only mentioning the US and Russia as possible platforms for negotiations is a tactical step, because Azerbaijan also benefited from the EUs facilitation and should have an interest to keep it.”