By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has said that a group called an "OSCE needs-assessment Mission to Armenia" lacks the legitimate mandate to perform relevant duties, Azernews reports.

In a statement regarding the deployment of an "OSCE needs assessment mission" by the Secretariat of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Armenia, the ministry stressed that the issue of such a mission has never been discussed by any OSCE collective decision-making body and thus, no decision has been made in this regard.

“Any group called an ‘OSCE needs-assessment Mission to Armenia’ does not have an OSCE mandate, cannot be associated with the OSCE in any way, and none of its findings or reports can be accepted as an OSCE document,” the ministry emphasized.

This unilateral proposal by Armenia is nothing more than a private visit by a group of several participating states and the results of such a visit will be evaluated accordingly, it added.

“This step raises serious questions given that during the past 30 years the efforts to stop the military aggression against Azerbaijan and eliminate its severe consequences, and even efforts on the OSCE missions not related to the former Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, were always prevented by the OSCE, with reference to the principle of consensus,” the ministry recalled.

The ministry underlined that due to Armenia's overtly unconstructive stance, it took years to agree on the two OSCE missions to then-occupied Azerbaijani territories in 2005 and 2010, respectively.

Taking into account the numerous illegal activities in Azerbaijan's formerly occupied regions, including illegal settlements, Azerbaijan's request to dispatch another such mission was denied before 2020, due to Armenia's resistance.

“Such an ill-advised unilateral action by the OSCE Chairmanship and Secretariat goes contrary to the basic principles of any responsible and credible mediation and confidence-building, which require, inter alia, the consent of the parties, the impartiality of mediators and compliance with obligations of States under international law,” the ministry emphasized.