ARMENIAN DEFENCE MINISTER, US OFFICIALS DISCUSS KARABAKH, ARMY REFORM

Mediamax news agency
16 Mar 06

Yerevan, 16 March: Armenian Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan suggested
today that monitoring be carried out on the contact line between the
Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces more often and that the results
be made public.

The defence minister said this at a meeting with US Assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried and the US
co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, Steven Mann, the spokesman for the
Armenian Defence Ministry, Col Seyran Shakhsuvaryan, has told Mediamax.

The defence minister said that these measures would help prevent
truce violations.

Serzh Sarkisyan thanked the USA for efforts in the settlement of the
Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, undertaken within the framework of the
OSCE Minsk Group, noting that he was an optimist and believed that
they would achieve success.

Relations between Armenia and NATO “are developing rapidly”, the
Armenian defence minister said at a meeting with the representative
of the US European Command, Col Mike Anderson, who accompanies US
Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried.

On behalf of the European Command, Mike Anderson thanked the Armenian
defence minister for the service of the Armenian peacekeepers in Iraq,
stressing their professionalism. He also thanked the Armenian military
leadership for cooperation and openness exhibited during the work of
the US Defence Assessment Team in Yerevan.

Speaking about reforms in the Armenian army, Serzh Sarkisyan said that
within 10 years the republic would have armed forces more compatible
with international standards.