On 9 March, the EU ambassador to Armenia Andrea Victorin stated that the EU stands ready to step up its involvement in international efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“The European Union is a reliable partner, and we are supporting Armenia, but we are also ready for greater involvement in the conflict’s resolution. This has to be discussed with the two relevant countries [Armenia and Azerbaijan],” she stated. 

She said that the EU’s special representative for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, tried “see what we can do to support” those efforts when he visited Yerevan and met with Armenian officials late last month (Caucasus Watch reported). The diplomat stressed that the EU continues to strongly support the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. “We are in a continuing dialogue with them. We need a common approach,” she said.

Speaking on Klaar, the EU representative for South Caucasus visited Baku, just a day later after Viktorin made her statement, where he met with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The press service of Azerbaijan’s president reported that the parties discussed issues of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the European Union, the new geopolitical situation in the region after the Second Karabakh war; work to restore the Azerbaijani controlled territories in Karabakh, as well as regional transport projects.

It should also be noted that Aliyev hinted that the negotiations on a new EU-Azerbaijan deal was nearing its end while meeting with Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto. “We are grateful for your support in our communications with the European Commission. As you know, we are now in the final stage of the discussions on the new agreement due to the pandemic and war. These discussions obviously were put on hold, but the absolute majority of the items have been already agreed. So, I am sure that in the coming months there should be more progress,” he stated.