Director of the International Organizations Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry Pyotr Ilyichev said that the idea of sending UN peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh is hardly realistic.
“The Russian peacekeeping mission effectively solves the problems of restoring peace and security in the region. Of the international and foreign organizations, only the International Committee of the Red Cross is still working in Karabakh, and the UN humanitarian agencies did not receive permission from the Armenians and Azerbaijanis to enter there, even to carry out a primary needs assessment mission,” he said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
“Under these conditions, even in the absence of progress towards providing international humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh, the practical implementation of the idea of sending an international peacekeeping force, which would require the permission of the UN Security Council, is hardly realistic,” Pyotr Ilyichev said.
The Russian diplomat also noted that there is no need to endow Russian peacekeepers with a UN mandate in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Baku and Yerevan agree with their method of work. The only guarantor of maintaining stability in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone remains the Russian peacekeeping contingent, which does not need to be given a UN mandate, because the methods of our peacekeepers’ activities are clearly defined in the first trilateral statement signed on November 9, 2020 by the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Pyotr Ilyichev told RIA Novosti.
