Yerevan/Mediamax/. Azerbaijan is trying to provide false information to the international community regarding the reason it hinders extension of the mandate of the OSCE Office in Yerevan.

This is evident from the journal of the discussions that the OSCE Permanent Council held on December 31, 2016.

At the beginning of the meeting the Chairperson noted that “one delegation” (Azerbaijan – editor) raised concerns that a planned activity of the OSCE Office in Yerevan in the field of humanitarian demining.

The Chairperson then informed that the German Chairmanship sent a Special Representative to Yerevan: “Based on his findings, we came to the conclusion that the activity in question does not fall outside the Mission’s mandate.”

He also found it “highly regrettable” that it hadn’t been possible yet to agree on the extension of the mandate of the Office in Yerevan, “in terms of substance, a solution acceptable to everyone has been found”, and “the remaining questions are of purely procedural nature”.

“The lack of flexibility even when concerns of substance have been met is detrimental to our work and to our common endeavours in promoting security and co-operation. Should such attitudes continue or become general practice, it would render the OSCE dysfunctional,” said the German Chairperson at the meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council.

The Azerbaijani delegation claimed it was not in a position to support extension of the mandate of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, as it had been drawn into the demining-related activity, “which is clearly a post-conflict rehabilitation measure”.

In particular, Azerbaijan is unhappy with the OSCE Office allegedly extending support to Armenia’s Centre for Humanitarian Demining and Expertise in settlements on the border with Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani delegation expressed regret over the fact that intensive consultations with the German and incoming Austrian OSCE Chairmanships, with participation of the Secretary General, did not produce a result that would accommodate the concerns of Baku.

Specifically, Baku expected the current and incoming Chairmanships to issue a joint political guidance for the OSCE field mission in Yerevan, instructing it to terminate its de-mining related activities.  

The Armenian delegation stated in its turn that the OSCE is conceived by Azerbaijan as a “battlefield to promote its conflict perceptions by hostage taking attitude”.

“We cannot create such an impression that OSCE damaging steps and misuse of the principle of consensus by Azerbaijan should be further tolerated,” the Armenian side stressed.