OSCE Mission to Visit Armenian-Azerbaijani Border
On October 19, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reported that it would send a needs assessment team to the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan.
The OSCE announced in a statement that it would send a needs assessment team to Armenia on October 21–27 in response to the government of Armenia's request. It stated that its specialists would go to the border regions between Armenia and Azerbaijan and undertake talks with the necessary local, national, and international partners on the ground.
"The possibility of sending OSCE observers to the Armenian side of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border is also under consideration," Mirzoyan told reporters at a news conference the day before.
The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan reacted critically to the deployment of the OSCE mission to Armenia. "Regarding the sending of an 'OSCE needs assessment mission' by the Secretariat of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Armenia, it should be noted that the issue of sending such a mission was never discussed by any collective decision-making body of the OSCE, and as a result, no decision has been taken on this matter. Thus, 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 outcomes or reports can be accepted as an OSCE document. This unilateral initiative by Armenia is nothing but a private visit by a group of several participating states, and any outcome of such a visit will be assessed accordingly," the statement of Azerbaijan's MFA says.
Earlier, on October 15, Caucasus Watch reported that the European Council decided to deploy up to 40 EU monitoring experts along the Armenian side of the international border with Azerbaijan to monitor, analyze, and report on the situation in the region. On October 14, an advanced group of European Union observers arrived in Yerevan, Toivo Klaar, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, reported on his Twitter page.