Former defence minister: The NATO's IPAP cannot be an alternative to the Collective Security Treaty for Armenia

• Monday, January 21, 12:56

The programme on partner relations between Armenia and NATO within the frames of Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) signed in December 2005, cannot be an alternative to Collective Security Treaty for Armenia, former defence minister of Armenia, Vagarshak Harutyunyan, said at the
roundtable "Euro-Atlantic community and problems of Armenia" held at the Eurasian Studies Institute.

"According to IPAP, the aid to Armenia is just of the theoretical nature.  At the same time, within the frames of this programme, in fact using its own funds Armenia supports the peacekeeping brigade, directing it to the regions where the NATO operations are held. It also has been implementing the obligations on democratizing of the country, that has nothing in common to the security problems. I also think that several points of IPAP are inadmissible for Armenia, in particular, Armenia's conventional disengagement and establishment of civilian positions, as these points reduce
combat effectiveness of the Armenian army", - Harutyunyan said.

He said that one should take into consideration that security of the NATO member-states is one thing and security of Armenia is quite another thing, as Armenia faces an open military threat stemming from Turkey. "For Armenia, being in a rather hard geo-political situation, the problem of ensuring security is the key one. But the documents signed between NATO and Armenia suppose no obligation in the matter of giving security
guarantees to Armenia and Nagornyy Karabakh . For this reason, for Armenia IPAP cannot be an alternative to the Collective Security Treaty, which fixed strict obligations on providing Armenia's security", - he said.