The official invitation to participate in the maneuvers was received by the Defense Ministry of Armenia from NATO in early December. Judging from all, it followed a difficult dialogue between the NATO commandership and Azerbaijani authorities as other participants received the official invitations from Brussels in early autumn. However, the official Baku declared it agreed to receive the Armenian soldiers. The Minister of foreign affairs of Azerbaijan Vilayat Guliyev urged its compatriots that the visit of Armenian guests was inevitable. ”If the Azerbaijani party does not receive the Armenian delegation, it may harm the relations of Baku and NATO,” he said stressing that ”it is necessary to think about the future”. After all this the behavior of the employees of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Georgia, where the representatives of the Defense ministry applied to get visas, seems very strange. The visas were refused without any explanation.
The defense Ministry of Armenia spread a statement stressing that such a behavior was inadmissible. ”We are sure that the NATO member-countries will follow their principles and continue to demand the participation of the Armenian party”. We shall note that even the commandership of the Turkish army has expressed its solidarity with Armenia in this issue. ”None of the NATO partner-countries can hinder to the participation of another partner in the Cooperative Best Effort maneuvers,” Major-General Riwki Drusoy said. We shall remind that together with 18 other countries, Turkey also participated in the last year’s ”Cooperative Best Effort” trainings that were held in Armenia.
The leadership of the Defense Ministry does not hide that it is going to pursue its right to participate not only in the maneuvers but also in the arrangements on other planning. It informs that the Armenian soldiers will go to Baku even if the Embassy of Azerbaijan does not issue visa. ”Members of our delegation will try to get visas in the Baku airport,” the statement of the Ministry reads. If discrimination is applies towards the Armenian citizens in the airport of Baku, than the Azeri authorities can wait for a serious international scandal.
We shall remind that not long ago the Ministry of defense of Armenia, on behalf of the Deputy Minister Arthur Aghbekyan made it understand that if Azerbaijan tries to impede the participation of Armenian soldiers, the official Yerevan will insist on revising of the decision about the country where the trainings should be held. There are all the bases to raise the issue about the inadvisability of holding the maneuvers in Azerbaijan. Baku has made its choice…
