Preparing population for peace and ensuring peacebuilding - Armenian FM sums up 2019 achievements in Karabakh peace

The Armenian diplomacy saw two major achievements in the Nagorno-Kareabakh (Artsakh) peace process in 2019, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said today, highlighting the efforts towards preparing the population for peace and creating conditions conducive to a peaceful atmosphere.

At a joint session held by the National Assembly's Standing Committees on Foreign Relations, and Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs, Mnatsakanyan underlined the value-based cooperative approach which he said has become "increasingly emphasized" in the fight against the new challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

In his words, the Armenian diplomacy managed to affirm sovereignty as key foreign policy principle in 2019. The minister added that the security of Artsakh and Armenia and the peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict remain the priority tasks on their agenda.

"Throughout the year, we managed to reach two arrangements in terms of preparing the population for peace and creating favorable peace-building conditions. As a humanitarian effort, the Azerbaijani citizen who had illegally crossed into Armenia was handed over to the ICRC's international and Azerbaijani delegations in Azerbaijan on June 28 by the Armenian authorities. The same day, Zaven Karapetyan, [an Armenian citizen] who appeared in Azerbaijan in yet unclear circumstances back on June 20, 2017, was handed over to the delegations in Armenia," Mnatsakanyan said.

The minister emphasized that the issue has been and remains under their permanent spotlight, being raised at times at different international meetings.

"Also the efforts towards strengthening the alliance and the strategic partnership with Russia continued intensivvely. They were marked by a political dialogue, i,e, - a close cooperation in different areas, including politico-military and energy sectors. The specter of the relationship with Russia is considerably big. In 2019, Armenia held the presidency of the Eurasian Economic Union, focusing attention on the deepening of cooperation with third countries," he added.

The minister said that active efforts are now under way towards deepening the cooperation also within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). He promised to continue the partnership with member states of the European Union and the countries on the European continent in general.

Mnatsakanyan also stressed the essentially increased EU assistance to Armenia over the period.