Georgia’s Defense Ministry officially stated that Armenia had confirmed its participation in Agile Spirit 2017 exercises back in July. SUT.am reports.
In particular, in response to Radio Liberty question Georgian Defense Minister Levan Izoria said that on February 2 Georgia had sent invitations to participate in military exercises to different countries including Armenia. After receiving the invitation letter, on July 10-13 two representatives of Armenian Armed Forces took part in final programming conference in Georgia and confirmed participation of three Armenian officers in the international exercise.
Thus, Georgian Defense Minister denied the Armenian side’s information that Yerevan officially did not confirm its participation in the exercises.
As is known, on September 3, the day before the start of exercises, the Georgian side informed that Armenia refused to participate in the exercises although it had confirmed the participation before.
In response, RA Deputy Defense Minister Artak Zakaryan stated that Armenia had not officially confirmed its participation in the exercises. Similar statements were made also by Artsrun Hovhannisyan, press secretary of Ministry of Defense, and Eduard Sharmazanov, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly.
It turns out that in fact Defense Minister of Georgia presents all these statements of RA officials as false.
It should also be noted that at least until August 29 Armenian flag was on the exercises logo, what proves that Yerevan had confirmed its participation in the exercises.
Let us also add that news about Armenia’s participation in Agile Spirit 2017 in the media has been published since