President of the European Council, Charles Michel, is very much keen on having the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan come to Brussels again. Toivo Klaar, the European Union (EU) Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia, stated this in an interview with APA news agency of Azerbaijan.
“I think it would be surprising if only two years after the latest big-scale war we would have everything being normal between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This takes time. The important thing is that there is political will from the leaderships in Yerevan and in Baku to overcome this history of conflict and we believe that there is this commitment by President Aliyev and there is also a commitment by Prime Minister Pashinyan. But again, it takes time, it is not easy,” Klaar said.
The EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus assured that it has never really been about the “Brussels process versus any other process” for the EU.
“We just wanted to support peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And in that regard, our position has always been that whoever as an outside actor is willing and interested in supporting this, we are happy to work with them and we are happy to coordinate with them. And in that sense, we have never wanted to have any kind of competition of processes or anything like that, because that is simply not the objective. The objective is to help Armenia and Azerbaijan overcome the history of conflict. So, indeed, we have not had meetings in Brussels for some time. The understanding of President Charles Michel is that it will certainly be important to get the two leaders back to Brussels because it is not only about Brussels but there has not really been any meeting between leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for quite a few months. And we believe that it is very important for them to meet on a regular basis and to really work on the substance of the outstanding issues, of which there are quite a few, and which will simply not be resolved without the leaders engaging and meeting in a substantive way as we have seen in Brussels. So, in that sense, President Michel is very much keen on having the leaders come to Brussels again. He met with the leaders in Munich a couple of weeks ago, I am here in Baku and I was in Yerevan last week to follow up on these meetings and now our open expectation will be that we can have the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Brussels in the very near future again,” Klaar said.
Commenting on the statement by the spokesperson of the US State Department, Ned Price, that the meeting of the leaders of the two countries is expected in the near future, Klaar said that “it was a bit premature to say that this is going to happen, I think he even said not "in the near future", but "in the coming days", and that was a bit premature to say that. But, this having been said, “in the near future” is certainly a realistic aim from our perspective. We do have Nowruz coming up, so, in that sense, I believe that this will certainly also play into this. So, I do not see this happening before Nowruz, but in the end, of course, we can bring, we can provide the platform and President Michel can invite the leaders, can put his time at the disposal, in the end, what of course matters is the willingness of the leaders, of President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan, to get together and to strike deals and to make peace possible between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in the South Caucasus, more generally.”
Asked whether he means that in Munich Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan agreed to meet in the future, Klaar said: “What President Michel discussed with both leaders was the process of how we get from here to have a meeting. These are the discussions that I have been having in Yerevan and now in Baku today.”
“On the political level, it is important to have this engagement on the societal level, it is important for leadership to be shown in both countries that the era of hostilities, the era of conflict is over and we want to build a new era of partnership and friendship. This will not be easy, I mean, if you also look at Europe and the relationship between France and Germany at the end of WWII it would have seemed impossible to have the kind of relationship that you have now between French and Germans. And how there are exchanges between students, and how governments meet on a regular basis between France and Germany. But this has required a lot of work and above all by the leaderships in Paris and in Bonn, in Berlin. This is something that has to happen here as well,” he said.
As for the "competition" with Moscow, Klaar suggested asking the Russians.
“We have made every effort to emphasize to the Russians that, for the EU, this is not some kind of geopolitical game, as Mrs Zakharova likes to say at times. For the EU, this is about helping Armenia and Azerbaijan, our two neighbours, to overcome the legacy of conflict. That is our sole interest. The South Caucasus is our neighbourhood, the EU's neighbourhood, as well, and for us, it is absolutely in our interest to have peace, stability and prosperity in this region, because if our neighbours are better off, then we are better off, it is as simple as that, and I would be happy if also in Moscow there were the understanding that, actually, if we had the same aim, then we can complement each other's efforts rather than seeing this as some kind of competition, which it certainly is not from our perspective,” he said.
“I just had a phone call with Deputy Minister Galuzin, a couple of weeks ago. I have also met with Russian Special Representative Igor Khovaev, I was even in Moscow in September [2022] to also discuss this. So, there are contacts, they are not very close, very intense and very frequent but there are contacts. I have their phone numbers, they have mine. And, again, for us this is not some kind of geopolitical game, this is about wanting to help these two countries and that is above all our focus. I think that should also be the focus of Russia rather than worrying too much about the EU's involvement,” added.
“We believe that this conflict can be overcome, the issues can be resolved, and we can have sustained, lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and also a settlement between Baku and the Karabakh Armenians in a way that does away with the legacy of the conflict. And that is what we are working towards. Management is something that you can do in a situation where there is no immediate perspective of resolution but I believe that here we really do have a perspective, I think there is a sense, both in Baku and in Yerevan that there is potential for resolving and overcoming the conflict and that is what we certainly want to work towards,” said the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus.
