Nato Cancels Azerbaijan Drills

[Sasun]

Looks like the stars have become benevolent to Armenia's interests now

 

www.armenialiberty.org

By Harry Tamrazian in Prague and Anna Saghabalian

 

In a move hailed by Armenia, NATO announced on Monday a last-minute cancellation of multinational military exercises in Azerbaijan in response to Baku’s refusal to allow Armenian servicemen to participate in them.

 

The decision, taken by the supreme commander of allied forces in Europe, U.S. General James Jones, came after five officers of the Armenian Armed Forces were denied entry visas by the Azerbaijani embassy in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

 

“The reason for it is that Azerbaijan did not give visas to soldiers and officers of Armenia,” a spokesman for the NATO military headquarters near Brussels, Lieutenant-Colonel Ludger Terbrueggen, told RFE/RL. He could not say whether the two-week maneuvers, which had had been scheduled to start later on Monday, might still take place within the framework of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program if the Azerbaijani government agrees to an Armenian participation in them.

 

News of the exercise cancellation, hugely embarrassing for Azerbaijan, coincided with a meeting in Brussels between NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and the visiting Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian. Oskanian praised the decision taken by the NATO leadership, according to his press office. He at the same time regretted “the loss of an opportunity for regional cooperation.”

 

PfP events, largely involving peace-keeping exercises, are organized and led by NATO commanders. Under the terms of the program, a host country not affiliated with the alliance can not prevent any other partner state invited by NATO organizers from sending troops to its soil.

 

“We regret that the principle of inclusiveness could not be upheld in this case, leading to the cancellation of the exercise,” NATO said in a separate statement.

 

Armenia, which hosted such exercises in June 2003, has been persistently seeking to participate, even symbolically, in the Azerbaijan war games to the dismay of the Azerbaijani leadership and public which regard it as the “aggressor” party in the unresolved conflict over Nagorno-Artsax. The regime of President Ilham Aliev has faced mounting pressure from domestic nationalist groups portraying any Armenian military presence as an affront to their nation.

 

Hundreds of people have attended street protests in Baku over the past week against the expected arrival of Armenian officers. The Azerbaijani media have joined in the chorus of condemnations by running blank pages and suspending broadcasts to get the message across.

 

On Friday, Azerbaijan’s parliament adopted a message sent to de Hoop Scheffer denouncing the initial inclusion of Armenian soldiers. Its position was endorsed by Aliev the next day. “I do not want Armenian servicemen to arrive in Baku, and Azerbaijan will take necessary measures for it,” he told reporters bluntly.

 

However, de Hoop Scheffer was quoted by an Armenian Foreign Ministry statement as telling Oskanian that Baku’s stance is “unacceptable” because it runs counter to its PfP commitments.

 

The PfP exercises codenamed Cooperative Best Effort 2004 were due to bring together hundreds of troops from two dozen countries, including the United States. Most of the participants appeared to have already arrived at their venue near the Azerbaijani capital.

 

The cancelled drills were preceded by several planning conferences. One of them held last June was attended by two officials from the Armenian Defense Ministry. Their presence in Baku sparked violent protests by a hard-line Azerbaijani group opposed to any concessions on Artsax.

 

Several of its activists pushed through police cordons, broke glass doors and stormed into the conference hall in a local hotel. They were arrested and sentenced to between three and five years last month.

 

In Yerevan, meanwhile, news of the Baku-bound Armenian officers’ early return home was greeted with relief by some people interviewed on the streets. “The Azeris’ refusal to let them in was wrong,” said one middle-aged woman. “But the security of our guys would not have been ensured there. So I’m glad that they did not go.”

 

“If they did such a thing in Hungary, imagine what they would do on their soil,” she added in reference to last February’s gruesome murder of an Armenian army lieutenant by a fellow Azerbaijani officer attending a NATO course in Budapest.

 

“What they did only harmed themselves, not us,” said one man.

 

Incidentally, the rumpus over the NATO exercises comes amid renewed signs of progress in Armenian-Azerbaijani talks on Artsax. Aliev and President Robert Kocharian will meet next week in Kazakhstan for what the Azerbaijani leader described on Saturday as make-or-break talks.

 

“A lot depends on the meeting in Astana,” Aliev said, according to AFP. “It could bring clarity to the question of where we are, whether we are getting closer to an agreement or whether we are going in the opposite direction. Now there is a chance to determine the road map for achieving an agreement.”

Edited September 14, 2004 by Sasun

[gamavor]

The star is called Oskanian.

[Armen]

Sasun, this is why I was advocating Armenia's Iraq deployment. Now Azerbaijan is going to have a strong word in the comming CIS meeting in Astana, where Kocharian and Aliev are going to meet. And Armenia must show Russia that it is not going to compromise anything to help Russia's policy of keeping Azerbaijan in its sphere of interest.

[Armen]

Aliyev: A lot depends on the meeting in Astana

http://www.yerkir.am/eng/index.php?sub=news_arm&id=9109

 

13.09.2004 13:29

 

YEREVAN (YERKIR) - Talks next week between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan could make or break the fragile peace process between the warring neighbors, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said last Saturday, Armenpress reported.

 

The Azeri president said the meeting could be a watershed after a decade of unsuccessful negotiations which followed a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the early 1990s.

 

"A lot depends on the meeting in Astana," Aliyev said on a visit to Barda, in north-western Azerbaijan.

 

"It could bring clarity to the question of where we are, whether we are getting closer to an agreement or whether we are going in the opposite direction."

 

Aliyev indicated that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minks Group mediators have said they would also attend the meeting of the Armenian and Azeri presidents in Astana.

Aliyev added: "First of all we must agree on the principles. If we achieve that, afterwards the detailed negotiations can get underway."

[DominO123]

Is there a confirmation of this info from other sources?

[Sasun]

Sasun, this is why I was advocating Armenia's Iraq deployment. Now Azerbaijan is going to have a strong word in the comming CIS meeting in Astana, where Kocharian and Aliev are going to meet. And Armenia must show Russia that it is not going to compromise anything to help Russia's policy of keeping Azerbaijan in its sphere of interest.

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Hahaha... Armen, I was so sure you would mention that Yes, it makes a lot of sense. But can we be sure that it played a significant role? I mean, NATO is not exactly the US. Azerbaijan is being stupidly defiant of NATO rules, so what else to expect?

[Sasun]

It looks like Azeris had a major victory Let us join to their congratulations I join to Ibrahim Isayev's congratulation

 

 

Azeri MPs Downplay Failure To Host NATO Exercise

 

www.armenialiberty.org

By Emil Danielyan

 

Leading Azerbaijani politicians sought on Tuesday to put a brave face on NATO’s embarrassing decision to cancel long-planned military exercises in Azerbaijan, saying that it is outweighed by the failure of Armenian soldiers to set foot on their soil.

 

The multinational maneuvers codenamed Cooperative Best Effort 2004 were called off just hours before their scheduled start near Baku on Monday after their five Armenian participants were barred from entering Azerbaijan.

 

“We protested at the visit of those who have occupied our lands and shed the blood of our people, and we have achieved our goal,” the speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament, Murtuz Aleskerov, was reported to tell fellow lawmakers.

 

One of them, Ibrahim Isayev, accused NATO of being “led by the nose” by the Armenians who have tried hard to participate in the exercises planned as part of the U.S.-led alliance’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program of which both Armenia and Azerbaijan are members. “At the same time, we have succeeded in barring Armenians from Baku, so let me congratulate you on that,” he added, according to the Turan news agency.

Qudrat Hasanquliyev, the leader of the United People's Front of Azerbaijan Party, went farther, describing NATO’s punitive action as a “major achievement” for his country. “Our people have shown their unity,” he said.

 

The most enthusiastic reaction came from a hardline Azerbaijani pressure group that has for months campaigned for Armenia’s exclusion from the exercises. Turan reported that the Artsax Liberation Organization (KLO) hailed their cancellation as a “small step toward the liberation of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.”

 

KLO activists vehemently protested the presence of two Armenian Defense Ministry officials at an exercise planning conference held in Baku last June. Six of them, including the group’s radical leader Akif Nagi, were arrested and jailed for breaking into the conference hall.

 

Many in Azerbaijan believe that the Armenian participation in the war games would have offended their country which suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1991-94 war for Nagorno-Artsax which they see as an Armenian “aggression.”

 

But at least one prominent politician, Zardusht Alizade, strongly disagrees with the anti-Armenian outcry. The Baku daily “Zerkalo” quoted him as describing it as “absolutely silly and non-constructive.” “The Armenians may have arrived or may have not arrived, but that would have in no way affected the resolution of the Artsax problem,” he said.

 

The PfP rules prevent a host country from keeping out any participants invited to an event by the NATO command, a fact stressed by NATO officials. Their decision was endorsed by the United States, with the State Department saying that it “deeply regrets” Baku’s decision not to issue visas to the Armenian officers.

 

In Yerevan, meanwhile, Armenian officials again welcomed the exercise cancellation. Deputy Foreign Minister Tatul Markarian told a visiting delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the NATO member states that the alliance’s “principled position” will contribute to regional stability.

Edited September 14, 2004 by Sasun

[Armen]

Hahaha... Armen, I was so sure you would mention that Yes, it makes a lot of sense. But can we be sure that it played a significant role? I mean, NATO is not exactly the US. Azerbaijan is being stupidly defiant of NATO rules, so what else to expect?

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

I surely did not play the role of a trigger or impetus. However, it played and it will play a role of a factor or a tool. The segment of NATO leadership involved in South Caucasus is more U.S. than anything else.

[Armen]

Eurasia Insight:

STRONG TIES BIND RUSSIA AND ARMENIA AT Artsax TALKS

Sergei Blagov: 9/14/04

 

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insi...eav091404.shtml

 

As Armenia and Azerbaijan prepare for tomorrow’s presidential summit on Nagorno-Artsax, Russia has begun to emphasize its own ties with Yerevan, prompting Baku to question the Kremlin’s role as an objective mediator for the conflict.

 

Chances for a genuine breakthrough in the September 15 talks at the Confederation of Independent States (CIS) conference in Astana, Kazakhstan are doubtful, but both Azerbaijan and Armenia are already touting their respective inclinations for peace. On September 2, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev told reporters in the province of Naxcivan, near the Armenian border, that "[t]he fact that I have not yet abandoned negotiations on Nagorno- Artsax means that I believe in their productivity," Interfax reported. In turn, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian announced at an August 30 meeting in Prague with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov that the two sides had made progress in laying "the foundation" for the September talks, according to Interfax.

 

But that foundation is one that Baku believes should include Russia. In August, Azerbaijan called on the Kremlin to step up its own contributions to a Artsax peace deal. Russia, long the region’s heavyweight, appears to be seen by Baku as a potentially influential counterweight to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose own peacemaking efforts via the tripartite Minsk Group have been the subject of much criticism from Azerbaijani parliamentarians and government officials.

 

When Moscow’s response to Baku’s demand came, however, it took place at a meeting with Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian -- the sixth such in the past year. At an August 20 summit in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that "Russia is ready to play a role of mediator and guarantor" in the Artsax conflict, but noted that "[t]here have been no breakthrough decisions."

 

A show of Russian support could stand Armenia in good stead at the CIS talks. Speculation has recently mounted that Kocharian is prepared to return the seven Azerbaijani territories it occupies in exchange for a peace deal on Armenian-controlled Artsax. According to one recent opinion poll, that would place Kocharian at variance with nearly half of Armenia’s population -- a delicate situation for a leader who withstood weeks of opposition protests earlier this spring. In a June 25 poll by the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, 45.5 percent of Armenians stated that they believe that territories seized during the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan should remain under Armenian control.

 

Meanwhile, Moscow appears ready to assist. Russia’s longtime influence in the Caucasus is already under political pressure from the US in Georgia and Azerbaijan and also under increasing economic pressure in both Georgia and Armenia from outside energy players like Iran. Even while expressing no official concern at reported US plans to establish a base in Azerbaijan, Moscow has been busy reinforcing its traditionally strong ties with Armenia.

 

Recent military exercises between the two longtime allies appear to have sparked the sharpest concern in Baku. At a training base not far from Yerevan on August 24-28, 1,900 Armenian and Russian troops fought back an imaginary invasion and assault on Russia’s 102nd military base at Guymri.

 

Despite assurances from Armenia’s army that the maneuvers are not directed against a third country, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry has taken a different view. Voicing concern that Russia had held war games with "an aggressor state," Defense Ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov has stated that the operations contradicted Russia’s role as a mediator in the Nagorno-Artsax conflict. In November 2003, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov described Armenia as Russia’s "only ally in the South." The Russian military presence in Armenia has deep roots. A 1995 treaty gives Russia’s military base a 25-year-long presence in Armenia, while a 1997 friendship treaty provides for mutual assistance in the event of a military threat to either country. Currently, there are 2,500 Russian military personnel stationed in the country. Recent military materiel shipped to Armenia includes MiG-29 jetfighters and S300 PMU1 air defense batteries, an advanced version of the SA-10C Grumble air defense missile. Russia's Federal Border Guard Service is also deployed to guard Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran.

 

Economic ties could also fuel Azerbaijani fears of favoritism toward its longtime rival. Armenia is heavily dependent on Russia for its natural gas and nuclear fuel supplies. In 2002, Russia wrote off $100 million of Armenia’s external debt in return for control of five state-run Armenian enterprises, including the Razdan thermal power plant. Russia’s state-run Unified Energy Systems power monopoly also controls Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power station and hydro-power plants under a similar debt repayment arrangement -- a deal that has placed 90 percent of Armenia’s energy system in Russian hands.

 

At the same time, however, divergent interests have begun to emerge, most notably with Armenia's aspiration to limit its dependence on Russian energy supplies by building a $120 million, 141-kilometer gas pipeline from Iran to Europe. Iran reportedly has agreed to supply 36 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Armenia from 2007-2027, a plan that could undercut Russian energy companies’ own position in the Caucasus. The plan has yet to be finalized.

 

Such a situation would appear likely to push Russia to forge even closer links with Armenia to protect its own energy interests. If so, the bid to promote Moscow as an objective mediator could be fraught with additional difficulties.

 

In the meantime, with little time remaining before the summit in Astana, the Kremlin is playing its own cards carefully. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Mamedyarov had little to show after an August 19 trip to Moscow to discuss Nagorno-Artsax other than an official statement that the Kremlin recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Kocharian was treated to similarly circumspect language at his Sochi summit with Putin. Wedged between foes Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Russian leader said, is in "a very difficult geopolitical situation."

 

Editor’s Note: Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based specialist in CIS political affairs.

[Armat]

Read carfully I did not know how much Azeris fear Armenians.Five Armenians were enough to threaten Azeri indipendance.How absurd

Cancellation of NATO drills Azeri people's success - TV

 

ANS TV, Baku

13 Sep 04

 

NATO has postponed the military exercises that were due to start in

Baku on 14 September, a representative of NATO's information centre

in Baku, Vaqif Dastgahli, has told ANS.

 

He said the information would be confirmed officially.

 

Armenian officers were invited to attend the military exercises within

the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace programme. In fact,

the invitation angered the Azerbaijani public a lot.

 

Thus, the Azerbaijani public led by the president has managed to

protect our state independence. This was not the first time in our

latest history when our independence had been endangered by the now

failed NATO event. History shows that the young Azerbaijani state has

faced and may still face more trials like that. What happened has

also demonstrated that the Azerbaijani people and their government

can be together at most critical moments.

 

Morons! Five Armenians were "critical moment"This society has so much hate that it does not know how to even think.

Edited September 15, 2004 by Armat

[Armen]

http://www.jamestown.org/

 

The Jamestown Foundation

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - Volume 1, Issue 85

EURASIA DAILY MONITOR

 

AZERBAIJAN'S NATO ASPIRATIONS SUFFER A SELF-INFLICTED SETBACK

 

On September 13 the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, U.S. General James Jones, canceled the Cooperative Best Effort-2004 exercise, which was scheduled to be held September 14-26 in Azerbaijan and involve almost 1,000 personnel from more than 20 NATO member and partner countries.

 

The exercise was designed to provide basic training for peace-support operations at the small unit level, and to enhance interoperability among NATO member and partner countries. A major component of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, Cooperative Best Effort exercises were held successfully in Georgia in 2002 and Armenia in 2003.

 

SACEUR took this decision after Azerbaijan rejected the scheduled participation of Armenian officers in the exercise. A statement by NATO's Supreme Command noted that all Partnership for Peace exercises are agreed and conducted on the principle of inclusiveness for all allies and partners that wish to participate; NATO therefore expressed "regret that inclusiveness could not be upheld in this case." Endorsing NATO's decision, the U.S. State Department also "deeply regretted" Azerbaijan's move as one "inconsistent with the country's stated desire to work toward closer partnership with NATO." It reminded Baku, "It is crucial that all PfP countries should be able to participate in the program" (NATO and State Department statements, September 13).

 

As recently as his September 9-10 visit to Baku, the deputy commander of the U.S. European Command, General Charles Wald, had expressed hope that the exercise would be held successfully and bring Azerbaijan closer to NATO (Azertag, September 9, 10). Turkey's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Ahmet Unal Cevikoz, publicly advised Azerbaijan's government to allow the Armenian officers' participation. Citing Azerbaijan's commitments within NATO's PfP program in terms of hosting joint exercises and nondiscriminatory treatment of participants, Cevikoz cautioned Baku that failure to live up to such commitments would damage Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO (Azad Azerbaijan, September 9; Trend, September 10).

 

However, mounting public protests swayed the authorities into refusing entry to the Armenian participants. Initially confined to the radical opposition, the protests quickly spread to Baku's mainstream media and political groups. Rather than attempting to work with public opinion to contain that dynamic, the authorities embraced the protesters' line of reasoning. Their arguments held that officers from an aggressor country that seized Azerbaijani territory and evicted the local population could not be allowed to participate in an exercise on Azerbaijani soil. The radical Artsax Liberation Organization (KLO), factions of the former Popular Front, and some opposition NGOs launched a picketing campaign outside governmental buildings and NATO countries' embassies and announced plans to call mass protest demonstrations if the Armenian officers arrived.

 

At the forefront of this campaign, ANS Television added a somewhat more sophisticated set of anti-NATO arguments, such as: Azerbaijan has done more for NATO and the West generally than these have done for Azerbaijan; the country has become "NATO's hostage"; Azerbaijan did not become independent of Moscow and the CIS only to become dependent on NATO; NATO condones Armenian aggression; and the authorities should "resist NATO's pressure" (ANS TV, September 5, 10).

 

The political authorities appeared hesitant or intimidated. Foreign Affairs Minister Elmar Mammedyarov and his deputy, Araz Azimov, were among the few senior officials who attempted to rescue the exercise by explaining to the public that failure to host it as agreed would damage Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO (ANS TV, September 5; AzerNews, September 10).

 

During the second week of September, the authorities' position crumbled. First, some small pro-government parties in parliament endorsed the protests. During a September 10 meeting with Russian Ambassador Nikolai Ryabov, Defense Minister Safar Abiev publicly protested -- on behalf of the "Azeri people" as well as himself -- against Armenian participation. Ryabov responded by urging closer Russia-Azerbaijan military cooperation (ANS TV, Azer Tag, September 10). That same day, Azerbaijan's parliament adopted a statement to NATO's Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in which it "resolutely protested against the participation of Armenian officers" in the exercise and warned that it "can damage cooperation between NATO and Azerbaijan" (Azer Tag, September 10). On September 11, President Ilham Aliev was quoted as declaring: "If we ask Azeris whether they want Armenians to arrive, they would say no. I do not want those Armenian military personnel to arrive either. Azerbaijan will take the necessary measures in this regard" (Turan, Itar-Tass, September 11).

 

Baku tried several compromise solutions, such as accepting only civilian Armenian personnel for the exercise or reducing the number of Armenians to three and their status to that of observers rather than participants. For its part, Yerevan sought participation by seven Armenian officers, as well as Azerbaijani guarantees for their safety. Ultimately, on September 13 in Brussels, a meeting between de Hoop Scheffer, Mammedyarov, and Armenia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Vardan Oskanian failed to break the deadlock. NATO promptly canceled the exercise. De Hoop Scheffer assessed Azerbaijan's position as "unacceptable from a PfP country" and a "breach of commitments." Oskanian "welcomed NATO's principled stance while regretting the missed opportunity for regional cooperation" (Mediamax, Armenpress, September 13).

 

Azerbaijan has recently allowed the Artsax problem to undercut the country's NATO aspirations and, potentially, its relations with Washington. In 2003, Azerbaijan refused to participate in the Cooperative Best Effort exercise that Armenia hosted successfully that year with full-fledged Turkish participation. In February 2004, an Azeri officer assassinated an Armenian fellow-officer during a NATO-sponsored seminar in Hungary. The crime did not meet with unequivocal condemnation in Azerbaijan. (By the same token it led to anti-Azeri stereotyping in most of Armenia's media.) When two Armenian officers attended a June 2004 Cooperative Best Effort planning conference in Baku, KLO members broke into the conference hall, threatened the participants, and rioted in the city center. The police intervened late and ineffectively. Six KLO militants, including their leader, were then sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to five years. On September 9, President Aliev, speaking in his capacity as a citizen, described the sentence as excessive and proposed that the Court of Appeals amend it (AzerNews, September 9).

 

Political advisers did Aliev a disservice by recommending resistance to Armenian participation in Cooperative Effort-2004. First, those advisers failed to appreciate that NATO could not allow any PfP country to decide who may or may not participate in the alliance's exercises. Second, by disrupting a NATO peacekeeping exercise, those advisers damaged Azerbaijan's own efforts to promote the internationalization of conflict management efforts in the South Caucasus with full-fledged Western participation. Third, Baku unwittingly gave some ammunition to those in NATO who would further delay the approval of Azerbaijan's Individual Partnership Action Plan. Fourth, Baku ended up looking unpredictable while Yerevan looked statesmanlike in this situation. Finally, as an overarching consideration for Azerbaijan to ponder, Armenia-NATO rapprochement could reduce Russia's leverage on Armenia, correspondingly increasing Western opportunities to shape regional security arrangements and resolution of the Artsax conflict.

 

--Vladimir Socor

Edited September 15, 2004 by ArmenSarg

[Armen]

Turkey's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Ahmet Unal Cevikoz, publicly advised Azerbaijan's government to allow the Armenian officers' participation. Citing Azerbaijan's commitments within NATO's PfP program in terms of hosting joint exercises and nondiscriminatory treatment of participants, Cevikoz cautioned Baku that failure to live up to such commitments would damage Azerbaijan's cooperation with NATO (Azad Azerbaijan, September 9; Trend, September 10).

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Notice the Turkish - Azeri disagreements. Azeri Russian laguage media has been writing about more deep disagreements in Azeri Turkish relations. Looks like Azerbaijan is seriously changing its foreign policy priorities. Although this is only temporary...

[DominO123]

Notice the Turkish - Azeri disagreements. Azeri Russian laguage media has been writing about more deep disagreements in Azeri Turkish relations. Looks like Azerbaijan is seriously changing its foreign policy priorities. Although this is only temporary...

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

Turkey obviously is much more evolved country when compared to the pseudo states of Azerbaijan.

[Armen]

http://www.a1plus.am/eng/

 

news

| 17:53:14 | 15-09-2004 | Politics |

 

USA AMBASSADOR WELCOMING NATO DECISION

 

”We commend NATO decision on cancellation of the exercises in Baku. One must not allow that even some of the states don’t partake in those exercises”, USA Ambassador John Evans said. Ambassador refused expressing other details.

 

Mr. Evans assured USA isn’t jealous for the fact that unlike Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia doesn’t strive after NATO alone.

 

”Each country itself chooses the way to pass. It’s the task of your country and must proceed from your interests”, he said.

 

 

news

| 17:32:37 | 15-09-2004 | Politics |

 

“USA WILL KEEP SUPPORTING ARMENIA” – JOHN EVANS SAYS

”I have something to say”, USA Ambassador to Armenia John Evans said at the meeting with journalists. “On October 4 the sitting of Armenian-American Intergovernmental Commission will take place in Washington. Some economic issues will be discussed there. Since 2002 to this very day USA has allowed support to Armenia. Financial support in 2004 will make $ 90 million”, he said.

 

Mr. Evans reminded that his colleague, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair Steven Mann is occupied with Artsaxi issue.

 

He also informed that USA will keep supporting the process of peaceful negotiations for Artsaxi conflict settlement.

 

As to Armenian-Turkish relations, Ambassador expressed confidence that opening the frontier is inevitable and they periodically remind their Turkish colleagues about that.