Politician: Deployment of a part of ISAF contingent in Azerbaijan is scarcely probable

• Tuesday, February 26, 16:59

 Deployment of a part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) contingent in Azerbaijan is scarcely probable, Kiro Manoyan, Head of ARFD Bureau
for Hay Dat and Political Affairs Office, told ArmInfo.  

He is convinced that NATO will not leave its troops in Azerbaijan secretly, without publishing relevant information about that. Manoyan does not rule out that some of these forces may stay in Azerbaijan for 1 or 2 days, but no longer. Therefore, any opposite information published at various levels is just supposition, he said.    

In the meantime, considering the US troops' possible participation in various peacekeeping operations in the Karabakh conflict zone, Manoyan said that their participation without being coordinated with the other co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group is ruled out. The politician stressed that Washington may take some steps aimed at improving the relations with Baku. However, the USA is unlikely to make something running counter to its positions, which may lead to
its refusal from the principle of people's self- determination. 

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), also known as the coalition forces, is a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan that was established by the United Nations Security Council in December 2001 by Resolution 1386, as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement. Its main purpose is to train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and assist Afghanistan in rebuilding key government institutions but is also engaged in the 2001-present war with insurgent groups. In
October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan, and ISAF subsequently expanded the mission in four main stages over the whole of the country. From 2006 to 2011, ISAF had been involved in increasingly more intensive combat operations in southern and eastern Afghanistan. 

At the moment ISAF includes detachments of 48 countries. On June 6 2011 ISAF had 132457 servicemen.  At present there are about 70,000 US military servicemen in Afghanistan. They will leave the country in late 2014.