Brussels, 13/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday in Brussels, the EU held cooperation councils with three of the South Caucasus countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The three meetings were mainly focused on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), of which the three countries are beneficiary, as well as on the action plans set in place in this context for each of them, and on which technical consultations have already begun between the European Commission and Armenia and Georgia (those with Azerbaijan are to begin in coming days). A press release published after the meetings states that the EU and the three countries all considered that the European Neighbourhood Policy was an “ambitious and realistic framework” in which relations could be consolidated in coming years. Speaking to the press, the Armenian Foreign Minister, Vartan Askanian, said that the ENP and the action plan will give relations with the EU a “new quality”. In the long term, Armenia even sees this policy as an “opportunity to move from a simple cooperation to some international processes in certain areas”, he said. Georgia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gela Bezhuashvili, also said that the ENP was a “good mechanism to go beyond cooperation, towards integration”. Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister, Elmar Mammadyarov, stressed for his part that one of the priorities of his government's foreign policy was to consolidate cooperation and integration with Euro-Atlantic and European structures and that the ENP is “along the rights lines”.
On Tuesday in Brussels, it was also a matter of “frozen conflicts” in the Caucasus region, and especially in Nagorno-Karabakh and in South Ossetia. As far as Nagorno-Karabakh (between Armenia and Azerbaijan) is concerned, the EU High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana, pointed out when speaking to the press that “progress is very recent”. He went on to add that “we hope that 2006 will be a year in which we shall move towards a solution”. Armenian Minister Vartan Oskanian shared Javier Solana's optimism, saying “2005 was a productive year” marked by considerable progress although further progress will be needed in 2006. “We hope the talks will soon resume both at ministerial level and between the presidents” of both countries, Mr Oskanian said. On the subject of the South Ossetia situation, “there is also progress”, and in particular last week during the OSCE ministerial meeting in Ljubljana, and the “parties involved can have the guarantee that the EU is going to help as much as possible”. The EU also attaches a great deal of importance to regional cooperation between the three countries being improved, Solana insisted.