ARMENIA DOES NOT REGARD AZERBAIJAN AS ‘ENEMY" COUNTRY, DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS
ARMENPRESS
Dec 14, 2007
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS: Armenia’s defense minister Mikael
Harutunian said today the country’s military doctrine has no provision
about an ‘enemy country."
Speaking to reporters after a parliament hearing on the country’s
military doctrine, the minister said Armenia’s relations with
neighboring Azerbaijan are strained because of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, but he added that Armenia’s clear-cut position is that
this and other problems must be settled peacefully and only through
negotiations.
Minister’s remarks came in response to a request to comment on a
provision in Azerbaijan’s military doctrine which describes Armenia as
‘an enemy country."
"I have always said that war will not resolve the Karabakh issue… We
are sure that sooner or later this conflict will be settled at the
negotiations table,’ the minister said.
The Armenian minister also recalled a statement by his Azeri
counterpart, Safar Abiyev who said in late November that the
possibility of a new war in Karabakh was close to 100 percent.
"Negotiations are certainly the best way to solve the conflict to
give the people of Nagorno-Karabakh what they want to have,’ he said.
He said NATO experts criticized Azerbaijan’s military doctrine for a
provision that calls for use of force ‘to liberate’ Nagorno-Karabakh
given the failure of peaceful negotiations.