IVANOV COMMENTING ON SITUATION IN TRANSCAUCASIAN REGION
by Alexander Konovalov, Viktor Shulman
ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 31, 2006 Wednesday
The withdrawal of part of Russian armaments and military hardware
from Georgia to the Russian military base in Gyumri, Armenia, cannot
destabilise the military-political situation in the region, Russian
Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said here on Wednesday.
“Part of military equipment and hardware is really being withdrawn from
Akhalkalaki to the Russian military base of Gyumri. This cannot bring
about the destabilisation of the military-political situation in the
region, especially in view of the fact that the withdrawal does not
violate flank restrictions within the framework of the Conventional
Force in Europe Treaty (CFE),” he said at a press conference after
the end of the meeting of the CIS Council of Defence Ministers in Baku.
The most important thing is that “any scheme of the settlement of
the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, imposed from the outside, is not only
counterproductive, but also dangerous,” Ivanov continued. “A final
scheme of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement should be based on agreements
reached by Armenia and Azerbaijan. In this case the guarantor countries
will take any steps for ensuring the fulfilment of the agreements,
while a difference way, which is sometimes imposed on us, is a way
nowhere,” Ivanov said.
Explaining Russia’s official stand on the Nagorno-Karabakh problem,
Ivanov stressed that Moscow favoured its peaceful political
settlement. “Contacts between Armenia and Azerbaijan within framework
of the Minsk Group under OSCE, with the mediation of Russia, the
United States and France, are going on rather regularly,” he added.