TO WHOM ARE MILITARY EXERCISES IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH ADDRESSED?
by Nurani
Translated by Pavel Pushkin

Source: Echo (Baku), October 26, 2006, p. EV
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
October 30, 2006 Monday

Saber Rattling Against The Background Of Negotiations;
Azerbaijani Observer Is Afraid Of Armenia’s Provocations In Nagorno-Karabakh;

Negotiations of foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Paris
are accomplished.

Despite that the ministers agreed to continue the dialog in Brussels
on November 14, many observers hurried to announce that negotiations in
Paris were fruitless. Really, the region already heard more than enough
conversations about "constructive meetings," "interested discussion"
etc but there was no real progress in the dialog.

At any rate, another thing is more possible. During the days of the
latest round of negotiations in Paris dedicated to resolving the
conflict and held at the level of foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and
Armenia, Senor Asratyan, press secretary of the Defense Ministry of
self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic announced that the army
of Nagorno-Karabakh was conducting preplanned tactical exercises
"aimed at improvement of interaction between the branches of armed
forces and troops formations in the course of counterattacking and
defensive combat operations and improvement of skills of personnel
and commanders." Representatives of the separatist regime developed
impressive media activeness around these military exercises.

Practically simultaneously with the meeting of the ministers in Paris
it was announced in Yerevan that between October 30 and 31, President
of Armenia Robert Kocharjan would visit Russia and a significant
part of the agenda would be again dedicated to military and military
technological cooperation. Such unambiguous readiness of Russia for
"asymmetric" military cooperation in the region definitely pushes
Yerevan towards a new "dance with sabers" against the background
of negotiations. Yerevan also drew unambiguous conclusions about
the stance of another co-chair – France too. Whereas Paris states
that disagreement with the thesis about "genocide of Armenians"
is a crime that Yerevan may not be afraid of harsh reaction on the
part of Paris. Against this background apprehensions about possible
provocative actions of Armenia are far from being ungrounded.