The issue of the sale of Russian military hardware to Azerbaijan is always on the agenda of the Armenian-Russian relations, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan told journalists on Thursday.
Kocharyan stressed the need to analyze what Russia is selling to Azerbaijan, how much it costs, and whether the balance of forces is maintained in the region. "However, weapons are not the only thing that ensures the balance of forces. Otherwise, the Armenian side would not have won the Karabakh war in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan had much more weapons than Armenia because following the collapse of the USSR it received much more arms than Armenia. It is the army's combat effectiveness that matters and we proved how combat effective our armed forces were during the August escalation of the tension in the Karabakh conflict zone. In addition, all our political and public forces, regardless of their political orientation, came out with statements supporting the Armenian army", said Kocharyan.
To note, Yerevan has repeatedly expressed its concern over the Russian-Azeri arms deals. In the meantime, the Jackson-Vanik amendment forbids Washington to sell weapons to Baku, and the UK and Germany have refused to export arms to Azerbaijan under the relevant OSCE resolution. In response, Russia says that it keeps the situation under control.