ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY CALLS INADMISSIBLE BAKU ATTEMPTS TO HAMPER ARMENIAN OFFICERS PARTICIPATION IN NATO EXERCISES

The Armenian Defense Ministry has come out with a statement, calling inadmissible Baku’s stand, “coming out in attempts not to admit Armenian officers to participation in the NATO exercises planned to be held in Azerbaijan.” According to a document released by the press service of the Armenian Defense Ministry, on the one hand, in compliance with the statements of the defense and foreign ministries of Azerbaijan, the Azeri party is ready to allow Armenian officers to participate in the conference to be held in Baku, forestalling the military exercises. However, on the other hand, the statements by head of the Organization for Karabakh Liberation Akif Nagi and the refusal of the Azeri Embassy in Tbilisi to issue entry visas to Armenian officers suggest that the Azeri party tries to prevent Armenian officers’ participation in the preliminary conference, hereby violating the NATO “Partnership for Peace” Program requirements, the statement of the Armenian Defense Ministry says. The authors of the statement are convinced that Azerbaijan’s attitude is inadmissible both for NATO signatory-states and partner-states and that those states will abide by their principles and will further demand that Azerbaijan admit the Armenian party’s participation in the conference. As noted by the Defense Ministry statement, in case the Armenian party is not provided with entry visas in the Azeri embassy in Tbilisi, the Armenian delegation, headed colonel Murad Isakhanian and also including lieutenant colonel Albert Baghdadian and captain Armen Martirosian, will try to obtain them at the Baku airport. The Defense Ministry of Armenia supposes that peace and stability in the South Caucasus are possible only via cooperation both within the “Partnership for Peace” Program and through bilateral cooperation, the statement says. Meanwhile, as activists of the Organization for Karabakh Liberation stated in Baku yesterday, “if the Armenian military arrive in Baku, Karabakh war veterans will try to take them hostage.” In the activists’ words, neither Azeri security services, nor NATO forces can prevent them from doing it.