ALBANIA VOWS TO CONTINUE EXPORTING ARMS TO ARMENIA DESPITE TURKISH PROTEST

Gazeta Shqiptare, Tirana
19 Jul 07

‘Turkey’s Blockade: We Will Seek Another Route’

"There is no reason for outrage. Problems between Turkey and Armenia
resulted in a consignment of weapons being turned back. The consignment
has been unloaded at the port of Durres," said MEIKO Director Pinari,
a company dealing in arms sales, yesterday. In his view, the conflict
between Armenia and Azerbaijan is none of Albania’s business. "It
is none of Albania’s business. All the sales procedures are in order
and in conformity with the law. We are examining the possibility of
using other routes. The arms trade is no problem for Albania, its
Defence Ministry, or, for that matter, Armenia, as no international
organization has laid an embargoed it. If there were an embargo,
there would be an international scandal," Pinari said yesterday.

Armenia, once part of the Soviet Union, has been showing an interest
in the arms offered by this country. Because of political differences,
Russia no longer supplies weapons to Armenia, whose army has the same
arms and ammunition as those of the former states of the Soviet bloc.

The consignment of Albanian weapons, however, failed to reach Armenia,
because Turkey refused the Albanian ship transit through the Straits.

However, the Albanian state says that it will look for other ways
for its weapons to reach Armenia.