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We Are Determined To Expand And Deepen Defence Cooperation With Arme

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  • We Are Determined To Expand And Deepen Defence Cooperation With Arme

    WE ARE DETERMINED TO EXPAND AND DEEPEN DEFENCE COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA

    Mediamax
    July 21 2010
    Armenia

    The exclusive interview of Celeste Wallander, US Deputy Assistant
    Secretary of Defence, to Mediamax.

    [Correspondent] You held a number of meetings with senior Armenian
    officials in Yerevan last Friday. Have you discussed the possibilities
    of deepening the US-Armenian defence cooperation?

    [Wallander] The primary focus of the conversations was our
    determination to expand and deepen defence cooperation. When the
    Secretary of State Clinton was here, she expressed the goal to
    President Sargsyan that the United States and Armenia expand what we
    are working on.

    And this was an opportunity to focus specifically on defence
    cooperation. I talked with both President Sargsyan and with Defence
    Minister Ohanyan about increasing our support for training and
    education of Armenian officers. There are other areas for developing
    it, in particular, expanding Armenia's capacity for contributing to
    international missions.

    Armenia already contributes to missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan,
    and the possibility for contribution to international missions is
    always there, and we stand ready to help develop those areas.

    We also talked about regional security issues, so that I can better
    understand Armenia's concerns and views about issues, such as Nagornyy
    Karabakh, but also broader neighbourhood and Armenia's relations with
    countries in the region.

    [Correspondent] US assists Armenia in the process of defence reforms
    and conducting the Strategic Defence Review. What is your assessment
    of Armenia's performance?

    [Wallander] A big part of defence cooperation is about organizational
    capabilities - through planning, processes, budgeting and also working
    on staff. And we talked about the SDR. The USA and other countries have
    been supporting that development and the process is going extremely
    well. This is a foundation for being able to do defence programs,
    to lay out priorities and assess relationships, interconnections and
    then understand the plan to be able to implement.

    So, that process has been going well and it provides that framework
    for other areas of defence reform. We are working with Armenian
    Defence forces to look at NCO (non-commission officer) development.

    This is, we think, a good evolution of Armenia's defence forces. NCO
    core is very important to how European and American militaries work
    effectively. It has to be helpful for countries to have that kind of
    model in military to make it easier to be interoperable with NATO
    and to participate in NATO activities and NATO programmes. And we
    were looking at other areas of staff development of the Ministry of
    Defence's internal reform to make it more effective and partnering
    in planning and executing various plans and programs.

    [Correspondent] Many people in Armenia and outside don't believe
    that full US-Armenian defence cooperation is not possible because of
    close Russian-Armenian military alliance and the presence of Russian
    military base in Armenia. What do you think?

    [Wallander] That's a question for the Armenian Ministry of Defence.

    >From our point of view, we don't see any obstacles to defence
    cooperation because of Armenia's relationship with Russia. The United
    States is now working on our positive and constructive relationship
    with Russia, so it's not a zero sum context and we work with many
    countries, who have good working relations with Russia, including
    military cooperation relationship.

    So, that's not, from my point of view, a constraint on the
    relationship. And I don't speak for the Armenian Ministry of Defence,
    but I did not get the impression that they thought it was a constraint
    either.

    [Correspondent] What do you think about the current level of
    NATO-Armenia cooperation?

    [Wallander] NATO assessment and US assessment of Armenia's
    implementation of the IPAP over the past couple of years has been very
    strong. Again, the planning aspect of the Armenian Defence Ministry is
    strong. They have a good plan and they work to effectively fulfil it.

    For our part, we have been talking about shaking our bilateral
    defence cooperation to support the IPAP. When countries have a plan
    for working with NATO, we, the United States, want to support that,
    to find synergy in our bilateral relationship. Some of the programmes
    that I just mentioned are not only making sense in our bilateral
    relationship, but they are meant to support the IPAP.

    [Correspondent] What do you think about the possibility of a new war
    between Azerbaijan and Armenia? Azerbaijani top officials are openly
    saying almost every day that they consider military solution as one
    of the options.

    [Wallander] We absolutely consider that there is no military
    solution to the Nagornyy-Karabakh conflict. During her visit to
    Armenia Secretary of State Clinton was absolutely unequivocal about
    the need to be firm in the commitments regarding the non-use of force
    and non-threat of use of force.

    Armenia and Azerbaijan already went through one terrible war and that
    experience hopefully will remind us that there is a required commitment
    to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and there exists a mechanism
    for working up a peaceful resolution. That does not mean it's easy. If
    it were easy, it would have been resolved years ago. But just the
    fact that something is not easy is not an excuse to not continue to
    commit to that. There are constant engagements, Presidents Aliyev
    and Sargsyan have met over the last months, discussions continue
    and the United States remains committed as one of the Minsk Group
    co-chairs. There are a lot of good ideas on the table and they are
    being discussed. And we really believe that we will find a right mix
    of ideas and proposals as long as parties remain committed to peaceful
    resolution and to the process.




    From: A. Papazian
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