Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, French President Emmanuel Macron and EU chief Charles Michel reached an agreement to that effect at a meeting held in Prague last week.
Macron said after the talks that that the “civilian mission” will seek to “build confidence” and facilitate the work of an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on delimiting the long border where heavy fighting left at least 280 soldiers dead last month.
“The mission will start in October for a maximum of two months,” read a separate statement issued by the EU on October 7. It said that Azerbaijan “agreed to cooperate with this mission as far as it is concerned.”
An EU diplomatic source told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that the Brussels-based ambassadors of the EU member states approved the agreement at a meeting of a commission dealing with political and security issues. EU officials are now discussing the composition and size of the monitoring mission and the precise date of its arrival in Armenia, said the source.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, discussed the issue with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in a phone call on Monday.
The EU’s special envoy to the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, stressed the importance of the mission when he spoke in the European Parliament on Monday. He said the initiative needs the full backing of the 27-nation bloc’s legislature and member states.
The talks in Prague focused on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty sought by Baku. Aliyev said the two sides are inching close to working out such a deal. It could be signed before the end of this year, he told journalists.