ARMENIAN MILITARY DOWNPLAYS RESERVIST CALL-UP
Ruzanna Stepanian
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22.03.2010
The Armenian military on Monday confirmed an ongoing nationwide
call-up of reservists but insisted that it does not signify a growing
likelihood of renewed war with Azerbaijan.
Colonel Seyran Shahsuvarian, the spokesman for the Armenian Defense
Ministry, told RFE/RL that men across Armenia aged up to 50 are being
summoned by military commissariats to take part in military exercises.
He said they spend up to a week in military camps refreshing and
improving their combat skills.
Shahsvuvarian downplayed the significance of such drills, saying that
the Armenian Armed Forces have always called up reservists to verify
their availability and make sure that "every duty-bound Armenian man
knows his place and function in the military" in case of a large-scale
armed conflict.
The latest call-up comes amid rumors, stoked by some media, that the
army has been put on high alert in anticipation of an Azerbaijani
offensive. The Defense Ministry has categorically denied those reports.
A senior Nagorno-Karabakh security official, Colonel Levon Chalian, on
Monday dismissed as a "provocation" pro-opposition media claims that
the authorities in Stepanakert have banned local male residents from
leaving the territory. "We are performing our duties as usual," he told
RFE/RL’s Armenian service. "There are no restrictive instructions."
Shahsuvarian, for his part, insisted that recent deadly skirmishes on
the main Armenian-Azerbaijani frontline east of Karabakh and Armenia’s
heavily fortified border with Azerbaijan do not indicate an overall
weakening of the ceasefire regime or an increased likelihood of
another war.
"We have the same stable situation that has existed during all these
years," he said. "It would be wrong to say that such incidents have
increased or that something has changed on the frontline." Chances
of an all-out Armenian-Azerbaijani war are minimal at the moment,
he added.
Shahsuvarian stressed at the same time that the Armenian military is
taking Azerbaijani threats to solve the Karabakh conflict by force
seriously. "We have been reinforcing our frontline fortifications,"
he said. "We now have several lines of defense there. We are raising
soldiers’ spirits, combat-readiness and so on.
"We also keep the military hardware at the ready. It’s almost
impossible today to find a single faulty unit of hardware at any
military base."
Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian likewise warned Azerbaijan recently
against attempting to win back Nagorno-Karabakh by force, saying that
Armenian troops have significantly beefed up defense fortifications
around the disputed territory and are prepared for another war.