UKRAINIAN ARMY CHIEF-OF-STAFF STARTS TRANSCAUCASIAN TOUR

Interfax-AVN military news agency web site, Moscow
23 May 06

Kiev, 23 May: Col-Gen Serhiy Kyrychenko, the Ukrainian armed forces
chief-of-staff, has started a tour of Transcaucasia, during which he
will visit Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the press service of the
Ukrainian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday [23 May].

“Having completed the visit to Tbilisi on 24 May, the Ukrainian
military delegation led by Col-Gen Serhiy Kyrychenko, the armed
forces commander-in-chief and chief-of-staff, will leave for Armenia,”
a press service official told Interfax-AVN.

Yerevan will host an eye-to-eye meeting between Kyrychenko and Col-Gen
Mikael Arutyunyan, the Armenian armed forces chief-of-staff and first
deputy defence minister, and talks between the delegations of the
two countries.

“During the talks, the parties are planning to discuss the state
and development prospects of regional cooperation and cooperation
between the two countries’ armed forces, consider participation
in peacekeeping activity, and share the experience in armed forces
reform,” the official noted.

The Ukrainian delegation plans to visit the Military Institute and
the Humanitarian Mine Clearance Centre in the locality of Echmiadzin
on the same day.

The delegation will travel to Azerbaijan on Thursday. While staying in
Baku, Kyrychenko will meet with Azerbaijani Defence Minister Col-Gen
Safar Abiyev.

[Passage omitted: Kyrychenko will also meet the Azerbaijani armed
forces chief of staff.]