S. Ohanian: Armenia will not be blindly drawn into arms race

Azerbaijan’s armament cannot but worry Armenia, Defense Minister of Armenia Seyran Ohanian told reporters today during a break at the second strategic political forum entitled “Political and Security Guidelines for the Formation of the Military Component of the CSTO”.

“But we know that military technical cooperation with our strategic partner Russia is at a high level, and we do our best to maintain the balance of forces not only in a quantitative, but also a qualitative sense,” the minister stated.

As for the sale of arms by Russia to Azerbaijan, Ohanian noted that the transparency of that sale makes each delivery of military equipment and each violation of the balance in the region controllable.

“All this imposes some obligations on regional countries so that they will not use that military equipment. I want to repeat that we have close relations with Russia,” the minister said, adding that for example, yesterday a new document on closer military technical cooperation was signed between Armenia and Russia.

In his words, the document will allow Armenia to raise military technical cooperation to a higher interstate level, thanks to which “Armenia’s military industrial companies will have the opportunity to sign direct contracts with such companies of Russia. So the situation is under control,” the minister said.

He also spoke about the arms race in the region, saying that Azerbaijani leadership has adopted a policy of purchasing as many weapons as possible. “I should say Armenia will not be blindly drawn into that arms race. We attach importance to quality,” Ohanian said.