BAKU: Armenian Official Unruffled By Azeri Defense Budget

ARMENIAN OFFICIAL UNRUFFLED BY AZERI DEFENSE BUDGET

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
posted on March 13 2006

Baku, March 10, AssA-Irada
Armenia is not afraid of war and is not particularly concerned at
the fact that Azerbaijan’s military budget is expanding, its Defense
Minister Serzh Sarkisian has said. He said Armenia was prepared for
any scenario.

“As for Azerbaijan’s growing military capability, this does not
exactly mean that Baku will draw any benefit from that,” Sarkisian
said. The defense minister said the Armenian armed forces were
currently in a very good position and regarded this as one of the
key factors behind what he called “Armenia’s military supremacy”
over Azerbaijan. He indicated that the millions of dollars expected
to start flowing into the Azerbaijani state budget [oil revenues]
would not make a big difference on the military front.

“If combat-readiness was measured by the size of military budgets,
the world’s key oil exporters would have the strongest armies. This
is not the case.”

Sarkisian also said the deployment of international peacekeepers in
the Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict zone was unlikely in the near
future because the parties to the conflict have to reach agreement
before that can happen.