YEREVAN. – The closure of the OSCE office in Yerevan is only one move in Azerbaijan’s big game, Director of the Eurasia Foundation Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan said during the discussion on the closure of the OSCE office.

According to him, there will not be any direct harm from closure of the office, there will be other ways of implementing the programs. As an example, he cited the fact that the representative of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) is in Armenia now at the invitation of the Foundation.

“However, strategically, we must understand that this is not a particular case,”­ Ter-Gabrielyan noted.

At the same time he added that Armenia could not manage to make so that Karabakh received assistance from the international community. This is one of the big mistakes of our foreign policy and consequences of the Karabakh's withdrawal from the negotiation process, he noted.

Noting that the OSCE Office in Yerevan has never implemented programs related to Karabakh, he said that Azerbaijan is trying to exert pressure on Armenia in respect of relations, democracy and communication with international organizations.

“However, there are big problems in Azerbaijan with civil society,” Ter-Gabriyelyan stated.

He also said he does not share the opinion that the Armenian side had done everything possible. In his mind, it was necessary to act beforehand and to work for prevention of the threat.

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.