Saturday, January 28 2017 14:25

ArmInfo. Discussions on OSCE mandate prolongation took place at the Head Office of OSCE on January 27, the press office of Armenian Foreign Ministry states.  Delivering a speech to the meeting, Clement Coya, the OSCE Permanent Board,  Austrian Representative Chairman,   mentioned, dthat during the  discussions on mandate prolongation one of the countries, Azerbaijan,  expressed concerns that the humanitarian program of mine lifting does  not correspond to the mandate of the  mission. 

Due to this, a special representative of OSCE mission, based on the  results of studies held during his visit to Yerevan, came to a  conclusion that this project   conforms the office mandate. The  OSCE  Permanent Board  Chairman  accentuated that both former German and  current Austrian  chairmanships do support this position.  

OSCE Permanent Board Chairman also expressed his regrets due to  postpones in the process of Yerevan office mandate prolongation even  in this situation. He accentuated this could negatively impact whole  the activity of the organization. 

As an option of solution, OSCE Board called Yerevan office to suspend  the implementation of humanitarian  mine lifting project. It was  mentioned also, that all other projects of the office should be  continued anyway. Austrian chairmanship expressed gratitude to  Armenia for proper understanding of the situation. 

Azerbaijan  happened to be in an isolated situation and, going  against 56 OSCE member countries, standed against prolongation of  OSCE  Yerevan mission mandate. In opposite, delegations of many other  countries of OSCE, including Russia, USA, EU, Canada and many others,  supported OSCE Yerevan Mission activities. 

To remind, the operation of the OSCE Office in Yerevan hangs in the   air due to  the lack of consensus on extension of its mandate. The   OSCE Offices  in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan face the same situation.   The mandate for  operation of the OSCE Offices is extended annually   on the basis of  the OSCE Participating States' consensus.      

In this respect Shavarsh Kocharyan,  the Armenian Deputy Foreign  Minister, thinks that European entities, and especially OSCE , should  voice their principal position in  respect to  Baku's efforts to put  embargo on OSCE Yerevan office  mandate extension. "European entities  accepted easily the decision on  cancellation of OSCE  coordinator's  office  in Baku, which caused  consequences we have now," Shavarsh  CKocharyan said to journalists  on January 19  after the Government  session.  According to Kocharyan, the problem is that all the  decisions of OSCE  are taken based on consensus, and Azerbaijan uses  this opportuniy.  According to Kocharyan, Baku gets to arm twisting   stating that can  block the budget ( OSCE branches and institutions  have common  budget), if things go in other way than Azerbaijan  expects. "There  are many tools to stress the country that puts  itself over  international norms," Kocharyan mentioned.