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Baku rejects idea of deploying EU mission to Azerbaijan’s territory near Armenian border

According to President Ilham Aliyev, the mission will stay in Armenia for at least two months

BAKU, October 14. /TASS/. Baku has vehemently rejected an attempt to deploy a civilian mission of the European Union to the Armenian border from the Azerbaijani side, President Ilham Aliyev said on Friday at the CIS summit in Astana.

"As a result of several hours of negotiations, the summit meeting (between the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and France and the president of the European Council in Prague on October 6 - TASS) decided to field a 40-member civilian mission of the European Union to Armenian territory at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. We found out later that there will be 50 people," the president said.

According to Aliyev, the mission will stay in Armenia for at least two months.

"The goal of the mission, as we see it, and that is why we agreed to it, is to help the sides to draw the border and to determine the issues related to delimitation. There was an attempt to deploy this mission to the Azerbaijani side (of the border) as well, which was emphatically rejected by us. Therefore, the mission will be stationed on Armenian territory, in the CSTO’s zone of responsibility," he stressed.

Aliyev pointed out that the first group of European representatives arrived in Armenia on Thursday to determine the mission’s deployment location.

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