MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. The EU observer mission in Armenia is spying on Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, further heightening tensions in the region, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing.

"The EU mission is spying on our country, Iran and Azerbaijan from the territory of Armenia. This has been factually confirmed," she said. "This destructive activity increases tensions in the region, and could lead to irreversible consequences in general," Zakharova added.

"The recipe for the settlement of relations" between Baku and Yerevan is to abide by the agreements signed by the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, the spokeswoman went on to say. "The peculiarity of these trilateral agreements is that they are comprehensive in nature and include comprehensive compromise solutions that take into account the interests of all countries. Heaps of work was done. And the West thinks that these efforts should be destroyed just because they have their own plan for the region’s future," she emphasized.

More than 100 EU mission observers began their work in February 2023, patrolling the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell announced on December 11 of the same year the decision to increase the number of observers from 138 to 209.

In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that the EU mission in Armenia tried to sniff out what Russia was doing in the region. Moscow discussed this with Yerevan. Zakharova stressed then that for the sake of inviting the EU mission, the Armenian side gave up on the mechanisms of the CSTO security bloc to stabilize the situation in the border areas.