ARMS SUPPLIES TO YEREVAN ADJUSTED TO ARMENIA’S EXPECTATIONS – RUSSIAN LAWMAKER

Interfax, Russia
March 29 2015

YEREVAN. March 29

An imbalance in Russian arms supplies to Armenia and to Azerbaijan
has been amended to meet Armenia’s expectations, said Leonid Slutsky,
chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Committee for CIS Affairs,
Eurasian Integration and Contacts with Compatriots.

“An imbalance has formed in Russia’s military-technical cooperation
with Armenia on the one hand and Azerbaijan on the other due to
an inexact assessment of the situation in the region. Armenia was
supplied with the same, but older systems compared to those exported
to Azerbaijan. This imbalance has been amended,” Slutsky said at a
press conference after a meeting of the Russian and Armenian profile
committees in Yerevan.

Unlike Azerbaijan which buys Russian weapons at their commercial price,
Armenia gets weaponry under different arrangements, he said.

“Even under these terms Armenia receives Russian loans. The terms and
balance of arms supplies meet the upper limit of Armenia’s expectations
today,” the Russian lawmaker said.

“Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are Russia’s partners. Partnership with
both must be continued in order not to provoke a rise in antagonisms
or outbreaks of tensions between them. Instead, further efforts should
be made to settle the [Nagorno-Karabakh] conflict” he said.

“Russia remains a peacemaker in the Karabakh conflict. All of us
must concentrate on further moves to assist the negotiators. But if
the negotiators’ efforts are not effective enough, the presidents,
I am sure, will manage to forge mechanism within the coming months
and take crucial steps on this uneasy path. Opportunities exist for
taking serious political steps this year. The presidents are to have
their say. We, on our part, must not interfere,” Slutsky said.

Chairman of the Armenian parliamentary commission for external
relations Artak Zakarian said in turn that, “Yerevan is concerned
about the current arms deliveries to Azerbaijan irrespective of who
is arming that country.”

He also made mention of a high level of Armenian-Russian
military-technical cooperation.

“We buy Russian weapons, too, but the difference is in that we are
using weapons for defense, and Azerbaijan for offensive purposes,
which is a threat to the region,” Zakarian said.

“We are worried by the fact that Russia, guided by various goals,
sells weapons to Azerbaijan. It’s not the quality of weapons that
is of importance here. Armenian servicemen deployed on the Armenian
border are aware that the enemy wants to destroy them using Russian
weapons. It is a problem that must be solved,” Sargsian said at an
international media forum in Yerevan on March 18.