Why did Armenia refuse to participate in NATO military exercises in Georgia, because of which a huge turmoil arose in the media? Napoleon Azizyan, “Tsarukyan” alliance MP directed the aforementioned question to the Minister of Defense, Vigen Sargsyan. The latter replied that the discussions on that topic are already getting ridiculous indeed. He informed that our armed forces participate in hundreds of events and skip thousands of events annually, similar to all countries: “Armenia has not had a decision to participate in that very military exercise which was discussed in the media, and still in March we have officially informed we will not participate – proceeding from not directly referring to the issues on our agenda.”
The minister informed that preparation conferences for military exercises are held and the Armenian side has received another invitation to take part in the discussion whether we are interested in that military exercise or not. Our people have taken part and informed about not participating days before the deadline – at the end of August.
As stated by the minister, no extraordinary thing has happened, but who is to blame for the mess made, Vigen Sargsyan sees the fault in their ministry: “The Ministry of Defense did not give an immediate reply to the news occurred in the media. I connect it with the circumstance that the Chief of Department of Information and Public Affairs [Gevorg Altunyan] and I were on our way to China at the moment, and the spokesman, in my opinion, has not given a full response, for which I have made him a respective remark, taking into consideration that he should have been able to cover that issue based on his experience.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
