To the question of the Armenpress reporter, what does the EU plan to do, apart from financial support, Peter Stano, the chief spokesperson of the European Union for foreign relations, said:
"First of all, the EU was not silent when it comes to that, we are very well aware of, maybe disappointment or criticism that the EU has not done enough, but I have to remind everyone that the EU is not an interventionist force. The instruments we have at our disposal are political and diplomatic and we are using them in terms of political or diplomatic instruments.
There were statements, public statements condemning the unilateral military operation in Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan very, very swiftly. I can recall only two very strong statements by the High Representative and Member States on this issue, I can recall the special session of the United Nations Security Council, where the High Representative, on behalf of the European Union, publicly delivered very strong messages condemning this, expressing our shock about the sudden displacement and mass exit of people from Nagorno Karabakh.
So, the European Union was loud and vocal, not only in the public domain, because we were doing the same in international fora, which are maybe not so loud and not so visible to the broad public and the same we were doing bilaterally, delivering messages to partners who are relevant in this context, not only to Azerbaijan, of course, but also allies of Azerbaijan, because as I said, the EU is very transparent and it's important for us to speak up when the principles are violated. And then we are demanding very clearly, that the people of Nagorno Karabakh need to have guarantees for a safe return.
You know, their property cannot be reoccupied or confiscated or resettled by someone else. There needs to be guarantees for the safe return of these people if they decide to return. We also increased our humanitarian assistance to those who fled to Armenia. We keep demanding international access and international presence in Nagorno Karabakh as part of these assurances for the people.
We are also encouraging Azerbaijan authorities to launch really a meaningful, credible dialogue with the Karabakh Armenians, because the situation needs a solution and the solution cannot be that these people, more than 100,000 people simply leave their houses and their home basically.
So, we continue working in engaging both with Azerbaijan, Armenia but also with international partners, because this is a task for the international community. Again, it's not the EU who will come and impose a solution on someone. So, we need to use diplomatic and political means through international fora and through cooperation with international partners to make sure that there are enough guarantees so that people, if they decide so, they can return to their homes."
