DEFENSE MINISTER LEAVES FOR BELARUS

Armenpress
Nov 22 2006

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS: Armenian defense minister Serzh
Sarkisian and a group of senior military officers have left today for
Belarus capital city Minsk to attend a regular gathering of defense
ministers from the CIS and CSTO that kicks off on November 23.

Armenian defense ministry said while in Minsk Serzh Sarkisian will
have a number of meetings with his counterparts. He will sign also
military cooperation agreements with Russian, Belarus and Ukrainian
counterparts. Before going aboard the plane Sarkisian told reporters
in Yerevan he saw no conflict between Armenia’s membership in the
CSTO and its active cooperation with NATO within the frameworks of
Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP).

"I think it is time to get rid of an idea that military and political
cooperation of a group of countries is directed against another country
or an alliance. This idea is no longer viable under new geopolitical
realities," he said.

Serzh Sarkisian also shrugged off what he described as ‘negative
opinions about his habit of frequent wearing military uniform," saying
‘to wear the military uniform of the victorious army is great honor
which one has to earn."

Sarkisian told journalists that the people who criticize him for
wearing military uniform forgot that he was wearing it since the
early 90-s, when he was head of self-defense forces.

"I wore military uniform both on the frontline during the war and
in other occasions when defending our country’s independence and
freedom," he said, adding that people who want to wear now military
uniform ran away form it in early 90-s as if it were a devil’s uniform.