ArmInfo.The EU stands ready to provide comprehensive advice as well as political support on the issue of delimitation and demarcation of the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan. EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar stated this in an interview with the First TV Channel of Armenia.
In this regard, he emphasized that assistance from the EU will be provided only if there is a need for it. "The EU cannot just take it and say that it wants to be involved in this process. Everything depends on Armenia and Azerbaijan", he stressed.
At the same time, Toivo Klaar pointed out that the delimitation and reduction of tension at the border are not two sides of the same coin, but are interconnected. In order to reduce this tension, according to the representative of the EU, it is necessary to start substantive discussions in order to exclude a new escalation of the situation in the future. According to him The presence of the EU mission in the region is dueto the desire to promote peace and prosperity in the South Caucasus, and not dictated by the intention to seize geopolitical territories.
Speaking about the withdrawal of troops on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Toivo Klaar noted that this topic has become the subject of a comprehensive discussion, both in Yerevan and Baku. On the part of the EU, as he further reported, several options were proposed to resolve the situation on the border, but there are still a number of issues that need to be resolved, including those related to the delimitation of borders, etc. In order to de-escalate the situation, in his opinion, it is necessary to move already to the practical implementation of previously agreed issues between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. During the interview with Toivo Klaar, the issue of Armenian prisoners of war was also raised. In particular, he assured that the EU pays special attention to this topic. Including uses various occasions and platforms to declare the need to release all prisoners of war. "This is one of the basic principles of the EU and we are working in this direction," he said. In this context, Klaar recalled that after the meeting in December last year in Brussels, 10 prisoners of war were released, and then another 5. He stressed that this is an important process in terms of restoring mutual trust in the region.