ARMENIA TAKES PART IN "AMBER HOPE – 2007" MILITARY EXERCISES HELD IN LITHUANIA
Noyan Tapan
Jun 20 2007
KLAIPEDA, JUNE 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The military exercises "Amber Hope –
2007" are being held in the port Klaipeda in Lithuania since June
18. This is already the 8th military exercise of these series since
1997 in which 11 NATO member countries cooperating within the framework
of the Cooperation for Peace program take part: Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Great Britain, the U.S.A., Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland,
Finland, and Germany. Russia, Belarus, Moldova, and the Ukraine are
represented as observers.
According to the information provided to Noyan Tapan by the RA Defence
Ministry, the main goal of the military exercises is participation
of representatives of armed forces of different countries in the
NATO’s possible attacks in case of critical situations, as well as
development of interactions between different countries.
For the first time all kinds of forces cooperate in the military
exercises: infantry, air forces, and fleet. The participants of the
military exercises (more than 1800 people) are divided into three
multi-national battalions, which are headed by the representatives
of Lithuania, Finland, and Great Britain.
The military exercises will continue two weeks and they will be held by
two stages: activities for providing peace (investigation of the site,
fulcra, armed groupings, and rendering harmless, to name but a few)
will be worked out in the first stage and in the second one on June
25-29 the knowledge and skills obtained during the military exercises
will be displayed.
Lithuania has the greatest number of participants in the military
exercises "Amber Hope – 2007" (1200 servicemen), Finland had about
300, Great Britain 165, Latvia 120, and Poland 60 participants. Major
Mkrtich Minasian and captain Ruben Papian represent the armed forces
of Armenia.
The military exercises will end on July 1.