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.