The EU is becoming more active in the region and at the same time talks on a Karabakh settlement are intensifying, Poland's envoy in Yerevan has said.
Zdzislaw Raczynski told a press conference that France had no authority to represent the European Union in the OSCE Minsk Group, the international body mediating a solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Karabakh, although France clearly did represent the EU view.
He recalled that the mandate of the EU’s new special envoy to the South Caucasus, Philippe Lefort, would be broadened and would include conflict settlement.
Raczynski said that negotiations on Karabakh were intensifying due to the growth in EU diplomacy. However, the envoy said that it was difficult to predict whether the talks would be successful.
He did not expect the format for talks to change in the near future; in other words, they will continue to be mediated by the Minsk Group, which is chaired by Russia, the USA and France.
Referring to Russia’s mediation, Raczynski said that the country was simply more active, but did not have a superior role in the process.
The ambassador said that the Karabakh conflict could not be considered frozen, when people were continuing to die.
He stressed that the conflict should be settled, since effective cooperation with all countries of the South Caucasus was a critical provision in the successful implementation of the EU project.
“What cooperation can be spoken of if you cannot visit Baku, and your colleagues Yerevan? This is absurd in the 21st century,” he said.
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