Yerevan/Mediamax/. Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan has said today that Armenia highly praises the growing involvement and contribution to peacekeeping and consistently builds and strengthens its respective capabilities.

Armenian FM said it in Yerevan in a meeting during annual “Challenges Forum 2015” organized by the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the Armenian Defense Ministry.

"International cooperation, partnership and mutual support play a key role in ensuring the involvement of countries with relatively limited potential. A good example is the U.S., Greece, Italy, Germany’s support in Armenia’s peacekeeping capacity development”, said the Minister.

He highlighted that Armenia’s approach to peacekeeping missions can be evaluated by its involvement geography in current and previous missions - Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mali.

Edward Nalbandyan also stressed the importance of mediation and conflict prevention.

“In this regard, it should be noted that the OSCE Minsk Group’s activities as a holder of an international mandate involve not only mediation, but also effective preventative mechanisms.

Introduction of the mutual trust and security measures proposed by the Co-Chairs, particularly creation of a mechanism for investigating ceasefire violations and incidents can serve an effective preventative mechanism. On September 28, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs reconfirmed their proposals on this matter”, said the Minister.

He highlighted that the mandates and missions should be developed specially to support the implementation of political decisions rather than based on general approach and templates.

“Individual approach should be developed for each situation to avoid damaging or interfering with the concerted format of current processes”, said Nalbandyan.