Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk's interview to Armenian News - NEWS.am.
Due to the pandemic, field work and monitoring have been stopped. Does this mean a pause in the work of your Office, or does work continue in a different format? Say, in the form of online communication with the parties? What kind of work are your field assistants doing locally?
As you may remember, after consultations with the OSCE Chairmanship, the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the sides, I announced on 18 March that my Office was temporarily suspending monitoring activities. This followed the closure of international borders in the region and the introduction of movement restrictions for visitors to military units. In addition, the Office was strictly observing all of the measures introduced by the authorities without exception. For this reason, my staff and I have also suspended all face-to-face meetings with our interlocutors.
Apart from the monitoring activities and face-to-face meetings, the work of my Office continues. Like many other organisations in this situation, we rely on video conferences and other technical means to keep communication lines open. We continue to follow the situation on the ground, maintaining contact with interlocutors and reporting to the OSCE Chairmanship and the Minsk Group Co-Chairs, as well as to OSCE participating States. I am planning for the resumption of our activities in full as soon as the situation allows. Meanwhile, the Office is also using the time to strengthen internal processes.
As you can appreciate, it is not possible for me at the moment to pay visits to the locations covered by my mandate. However, I maintain constant telephone contact with the authorities at the highest military and civilian levels. I also participate in telephone conferences convened regularly by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs. I can say that in spite of these constraints, I have continued to be busy these past few months!
After returning to the full-scale field work, will your Office catch up on any monitoring that should have taken place but did not because of the lockdown?
My Office is prepared to resume full scale monitoring activates swiftly as soon as circumstances allow.
At present, according to the parties, the relative lull, however, is sometimes broken by skirmishes and attempts at sabotage. Do you think the parties have sufficiently heeded the call of the UN Secretary General to refrain from actions during the pandemic?
The parties have commented extensively on this issue. I don’t have anything further to add except to note that the appeal of the UN Secretary General was echoed by the OSCE Secretary General and the Minsk Group Co-Chairs.
What about expanding your Office?
To recall, at the summits in Vienna and St Petersburg in 2016, an idea of expanding my Office was accepted in principle. The modalities related to this expansion still need to be agreed upon.
Despite some lull, the issue of incident investigation does not lose its relevance. Are the parties moving forward on this issue? In the event of an incident, do the parties inform the OSCE about the incident?
Whenever there is an incident, I am in contact with the sides and inform the OSCE Chairmanship and the Minsk Group Co-Chairs. It is important to remember that I do not have the mandate to conduct investigations.
Last year, a small step was taken - Armenia and Azerbaijan exchanged groups of journalists who visited countries on study tours. How do you assess this initiative?
Support for confidence-building measures is an important part of my mandate. I hope that people-to-people contacts can help to build trust and repair relations. I remain committed to assist in developing further confidence-building measures upon the request of the sides and when the situation related to COVID-19 will allow for it.
Given your tremendous experience and knowledge of the specifics of this conflict, what measures could you mark as steps to establish an atmosphere of trust?
I can only encourage and assist the sides in developing confidence-building measures when they agree to do so. I remain in touch with the OSCE Chairmanship and the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to offer support for the development of specific confidence-building measures. There can be many kinds of these measures in different spheres, for example military, people-to-people, humanitarian, or economic.
