Vagharshak Harutyunyan: There are weapons that Russia gives us for nothing (video)
The most important is question in the Karabakh conflict is that which side will bring peacekeeping forces to the country, says former defence minister of Armenia. Vagharshak Harutyunyan said this when commenting on Russian FM Sergey Lavrov’s statement on a need to intensify the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. “He [Lavrov] does not mention in his speech which country will deploy its peacekeeping forces to Karabakh. No progress can be expected without the deployment of third-party peacekeeping troops in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. If you ask me whether there are any preconditions for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict I will definitely say – no, there aren’t. The former Defence Minister says ‘Armenia has always stated our readiness to return six regions, which has no precedent in history. We have never heard the winning side make concessions.’ “We have always said we are ready to return these six regions but Azerbaijan does not agree to this: they want to receive Karabakh. As long as Azerbaijan is not ready for concessions we cannot say that there are preconditions [for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict],” he stressed. Mr Harutyunyan says there are three options for the conflict resolution – negotiations, war and pressure exerted on the conflicting side by the world powers. However, he says none of the options produces the desired results. “The negotiations yield no results: superpowers pursing different interests will be involved in hostilities if a war is unleashed. This may result in the confrontation between Russia and NATO on the one hand, and between CSTO and NATO, on the other hand. But these are nuclear and they avoid such developments and direct confrontations,” he said. The former minister says although Armenia and Azerbaijan spend different sums of money on arms purchase they are in equal position in terms of armament. “They know all our targets in Karabakh and Armenia. Similarly, we know theirs. But the point is that Armenia is under the protection of the CSTO and Russia. Should Azerbaijan try to target at Yerevan or some other Armenian city, it will start a war with Russia,” Mr Harutyunyan said. The former minister says the arms race does not necessarily mean that the sides are perpetrating for war: they are simply trying to maintain the equilibrium and replacing the old weapons with new ones. “By the way, there are weapons that Russia gives us for nothing,” he said in conclusion.
