Toivo Klaar: Most of the draft peace treaty between Yerevan and Baku has already been agreed upon

ArmInfo. Most of the draft peace treaty between Yerevan and Baku has already been agreed upon.  This was stated by Toivo Klaar, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia "The only thing missing is the political will needed to reach the finish line. We have been encouraged by the latest intensive exchanges of drafts and the recent trilateral meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan with U.S. Secretary of State Blinken in Washington DC on 10 July 2024.  We firmly believe that reaching a final agreement on the remaining issues and wording is within reach," Klaar said in an interview with Jam-news.

At the same time, he expressed confidence that the peace treaty and its subsequent implementation will fundamentally change the situation in the region. " I believe the leaders also share this view and will undertake all the efforts needed to reach a final agreement on the matter However, the fact that they did not meet during the recent European Political Community summit in the UK it is also a reminder how fragile the process still is. It does not show lack of commitment by either side, but illustrates well the sensitivities associated not only with the substance, but also with the process of the normalisation deliberations," the EU official added.

At the same time, he expressed his conviction that the signing of the treaty would be a major achievement. 

"But agreements of course need to be implemented and so a peace agreement will only be a waypoint towards normalisation. In the end, peace is about people, and normalisation of relations must mean normalisation at the societal level.

Much of the peace process has been quite top-down, and what is ultimately needed is a genuine opening, including through cross border trade and connectivity of the region, and making peace and stability feel normal for the populations on both sides," he added.  In this vein, Klaar noted that based on the above, he had placed a great deal of emphasis in his work on confidence-building, dialogue and reconciliation efforts around formal negotiation processes, and the EU has been supporting such activities for many years to help create a favorable environment for real peace.

" The international community will need to remain engaged both politically and financially, also after the signature of a peace agreement. But the onus, as now, will remain on the leaderships in Yerevan and Baku to not stop half way, but to continue all the way towards a full normalisation of relations, not only between governments, but also between peoples," the EU official said.  When asked to assess the EU's mediation efforts, Klaar noted that After the 2020 war the EU, mostly at the request of the parties themselves, started to play a more prominent role, which culminated with the series of high-level trilateral meetings between President Michel, Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan.

" I believe that these meetings - in addition to efforts undertaken by other international actors - provided the two leaders with the necessary space to reach some common understandings on the main issues at stake:  the peace treaty, border delimitation and demarcation, the reopening of regional economic and transport links, and humanitarian issues.We had six meetings of the leaders in Brussels between 14 December 2021 and 15 July 2023, we had numerous high-level telephone exchanges, and we organised meetings of the security advisors here.  Combined with my visits to Baku and Yerevan, and the wider region, I believe that the EU helped create a certain framework, based on which the leaders could give the Foreign Ministers, the Deputy Prime Ministers and other key actors guidance, and steer for further negotiations Over the past months, the bilateral track between Armenia and Azerbaijan has managed to produce concrete positive outcomes," he told.

According to him, the EU has welcomed all these developments, be it the 7 December 2023 joint statement on releases of detainees and COP29, or the more recent agreements on border delimitation and demarcation of 19 April 2024, with their subsequent implementation.  "The latter are based precisely on the common understandings that had been reached earlier with our involvement, for instance on the unambiguous acceptance of the 1991 Almaty Declaration as the basis for the delimitation of the bilateral border.

Finally, even though we have seen more bilateral meetings recently, the EU stands ready to again step in as a facilitator when requested by the parties," Klaar concluded.