ARMENIA TO "DEFINITELY TAKE PART" IN NATO EXERCISE IN GEORGIA
Interfax
April 20 2009
Russia
Armenia’s Defense Ministry said Armenia "will definitely take part"
in a planned NATO military exercise in Georgia on May 6-June 1,
an exercise Russia has been protesting at.
"After the conference on planning the exercise we will be able to
say definitively what will be the composition [of our forces that]
will take part in this exercise. But we will definitely take part,"
ministry spokesman Seiran Shakhsuvarian told Interfax.
The planned Cooperative Longbow 2009 exercise, announced by NATO on
Wednesday, would bring 1,300 troops from 19 countries some of which
are NATO members and some are not but are involved in the alliance’s
Partnership for Peace program.
The first phase of the exercise would take place in Georgia’s capital,
Tbilisi. The second will be field maneuvers at the Vaziani military
base on May 18-June 1.
On Friday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev described the planned
exercise as a "shortsighted" move that "doesn’t help strengthen
Russia’s contacts with NATO."
The day before, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters
in Yerevan that Cooperative Longbow 2009 would not be conducive to
stability in the Caucasus.
Russian permanent envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax: "On
Wednesday we sent an official appeal to the NATO secretary general,
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, with a proposal for putting off the NATO
military exercise that is due to take place in Georgia shortly or
for canceling it altogether."