NATO IS A “PARTNER” OF ARMENIA

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[08:07 pm] 23 May, 2006

It is upon Armenia to decide how to cooperate with NATO. “NATO
doesn’t force any country to become its member and doesn’t hamper its
cooperation with other countries,” claimed Robert Simmons, special
envoy of the NATO Secretary General on South Caucasian affairs during
today’s press release.

Mr. Simmons answered various questions within half an hour and repeated
his above mentioned words several times. NATO is ready to support
Armenia in taking out the Russian military bases but “it is upon
the country to decide how long to keep them in its territory.” It
is upon Robert Kocharyan to participate in the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly or not. If NA Speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan resigns for his
positive attitude towards the NATO, it is not upon Mr. Simmons to
give his evaluation of the matter either, “In any country people
may have diversity of opinions and they are free to express them,
but the Armenian Government decides its strategy itself.” Simmons
maintains that the NATO and Armenia are “partners” at present, and
such relations are profitable for the two sides. In the framework
of “partner relationship” they implement the program of Individual
partnership. The NATO representative registered positive progress in
the course of 6-month implementation.

The real evaluation will be given during the NATO session which will
be held on June 14. RA Foreign Minister and Defense Minister will also
participate in the session. By the way, Robert Simmons expressed his
hesitation on the claims of the RA officials that the RA army will
meet the NATO criteria in 2015. “it is not a university where one
has to fix a deadline,” said Mr. Simmons noting that there are the
NATO member countries which haven’t yet finished the reforms of the
defense and security fields.

While referring to the Karabakh conflict Robert Simmons stated that
NATO is not directly engaged in it but it support the OSCE Minsk
group. As for settlement of the peacekeeping forces of the NATO member
countries in the “occupied lands,” Simmons claims that it will be
probable only in case Armenia and Azerbaijan come to an agreement
on this score. By the way, Mr. Simmons didn’t understand and didn’t
want to make accurate what the Armenian journalist meant by saying
“occupied lands.” Simmons only urged that NATO doesn’t mingle with
the affairs of its member countries, let us take Turkey and Armenia
for instance, and leaves it for the member countries to settle their
affairs themselves.