YEREVAN. – The Office in Yerevan had no role in the Karabakh peace process, which is dealt with by other OSCE structures, the Austrian chairmanship to the OSCE said in an e-mail comment in response to Armenian News-NEWS.am inquiry.

Asked whether the closure of the OSCE office in Yerevan may impact the Karabakh peace process, representative of the OSCE chairmanship Helene Spitzer said: “This was also the case of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, which did a lot of good work in different areas. OSCE field operations are the centre-piece of the organization’s daily work. These missions have tailor-made mandates, to assist the host countries through concrete projects that respond to their needs and give support in implementing their OSCE commitments. In this context, we commend the dedicated work carried out by Ambassador Argo Avakov and his team.”

The Chairmanship cannot speculate on the impact of the status quo for the OSCE’s reputation, the spokesperson said in response to a question whether the closure of the Yerevan office might harm reputation of the organization.

“We are convinced that options for an alternative OSCE engagement should be explored in-depth, in order to enable further support to and co-operation in all dimensions of security in the South Caucasus.”

As reported earlier, the activities of the OSCE office have been suspended because of lack of consensus on extending mandate of the Yerevan office. Azerbaijan presented claims against trainings on demining. The Armenian side agreed to stop the project, but the efforts were useless. The talks in Vienna did not give positive results.