On July 9, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan participated in and delivered remarks at the OSCE Informal Ministerial Gathering entitled “From past action to future prevention: the OSCE ́s niche in fostering stability in Europe and beyond”, held in Slovakia and attended by Foreign Ministers of more than two dozen countries, as well as the heads of the OSCE institutions.

In his remarks, Minister Mnatsakanyan expressed his gratitude to the Foreign Minister of Slovakia for the high-level organization of the meeting. 

Minister Mnatsakanyan touched upon the existing challenges within the three dimensions of the OSCE activity, stressing out that the OSCE, in fact, is part of this European architecture, that unites big and small states which highly appreciate multilateral cooperation. “Having in mind the broader geography of the OSCE, where participant states from the CSTO, Eurasian Union, European Union and NATO are represented. There are some that are non-aligned at all. It is an important platform to test the various ideas, the various ways in which, if we don’t overcome the differences, we can at least manage them. So that’s a very important value that we should recognize and sustain within the OSCE”.

Touching upon the human dimension, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan noted that it generally is the basis of the work carried out within the framework of regional multilateral cooperation in Europe, though the regression in this direction is currently obvious. “Human rights and democracy values are pushed into decline and that is very dangerous”,- Foreign Minister underscored. 

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan emphasized the importance of the ODIHR, the Representative on Freedom of the Media, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, - the organizations within the OSCE, stressing out that Armenia highly benefits from cooperation with those institutions. 

“We have to find the way in which we do sustain the use of these mechanisms that we have in the OSCE. They must be sustained and they must be supported. The dangers that we have with human dimension implementation dialogue is heartbreaking. This just shows how very much in defensive this dimension of our work is at the moment. We know we have been doing this over these many years within Europe, knowing the value of the civil society and within this organization pushing them in the back is not exactly a good idea in my view.”

In his remarks, Foreign Minister of Armenia considered the selective attitude towards human rights unacceptable. “Within the OSCE area, we have conflicts. And we have to learn the method of applying a status-neutral approach to human rights. There are areas in which people are taking effort to promote human rights, to build institutions in their own way, as they do not have the support as many others do. We cannot approach it in a way that we say we can do it over here and we cannot do it over there. Human rights is status-neutral. That we have to admit, to accept and to find a mechanism in which we spread the support of human rights in every part of the OSCE area. And of course, I obviously have in mind also Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno Karabakh conflict is about the human being. It is about people. And it is about the existential physical security of that people. That is at the heart of our approach. I want to, also in this particular context, mention the important role of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, within which we try to find the peaceful resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”

Within the framework of informal Ministerial Gathering the Foreign Minister of Armenia held meetings with a number of partners.