“I cannot give any official comment”, the spokesman of the Defense Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Artsrun Hovhannisyan gave the aforementioned answer to the following question: which was the reason that Armenia decided not to take part in Agile Spirit 2017 multinational military exercises taking place in Georgia from September 3-11?
Let us remind you that 2 days ago when news was spread about the military exercises, the name of Azerbaijan was not being mentioned among the member countries, it was mentioned that representatives from the US, Georgia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, and Ukraine will participate.
Did this particular factor play its role in Armenia’s cancellation of this decision? The editor in chief of “Kavnews” portal, political analyst Anton Evstratov has mentioned on this occasion that in Armenia’s decision the absence of the primary factor – the trust among the partners of NATO military exercises has played a major role.
Asked whether it is possible that Armenia has made the decision of not taking part in the military exercises under the pressure of the official Moscow, Mr. Evstratov replied: “Assuredly Russia has its interests in post-Soviet territory, competing with the US and NATO member countries, but for forbidding Armenia to participate in the exercises Moscow did not have to do it all of a sudden. For that, more odious format might have been chosen. For example, the official Yerevan could reject the participation from the very beginning and no counteraction could be in place.”
The commentator reminds that in 2015 Armenia has taken part in Agile Spirit multinational military exercised and no one has forbidden it, moreover – all of a sudden.
As stated by the commentator, the reasons for the decision of not taking part in the military exercises being made hours ago can be manifold – starting from the technical reasons for the absence of the trust. According to Anton Evstratov, in making this decision the fact of Azerbaijan’s opening fire during the NATO monitoring and that neither OSCE nor NATO made criticizing announcements on this occasion could have played a role as well.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
