ARMENIA DOES NOT RULE OUT COOPERATION IN SOUTH CAUCASUS WITHIN NATO PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE PROGRAM

Armenia does not rule out the opportunity of establishing cooperation in the South Caucasus within the NATO Partnership for Peace program, stated Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia, Colonel General Mikayel Harutyunian at a session of staff chiefs of the Military Committee of the Council of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership in Brussels. “Unfortunately, due to the non-constructive stance and official bellicose demagogy of the neighboring state a notion as though regional cooperation in the South Caucasus within the Partnership for Peace is doomed to failure is formed. Impeding participation of Armenian officers in the Baku conference on planning the Cooperative Best Effort-2004 maneuvers, as well as the brutal, unwarrantable murder of an Armenian officer in Budapest in the course of a measure being held within the Partnership, embarrass but do not rule out the opportunity of regional cooperation,” M. Harutyunian stated. Touching upon the crime in Budapest, he stated, “My officer was killed not when fulfilling a combat mission or resulting from an accident, but because a whole generation, in which hatred to everything relating to Armenia is instilled, was brought up in the neighboring republic.” In the general’s opinion, “this hatred can be overcome only via joint efforts and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership has all the necessary means to that end at its disposal.”