WILL THE ARMENIAN SOLDIER REACH APSHERON?

PanARMENIAN.Net - Last year similar trainings were held in Georgia. The trainings of 2004 are supposed to be held in Azerbaijan. This means that already in autumn the Armenian Defense Ministry will receive from Brussels the official invitation to participate in the upcoming trainings. The political leadership of the country has to decide whether to send representatives to Baku, or not.

The Colonel Murad Isakhanyan who was authorized by the NATO commandership to command the ''Cooperative Best Effort 2003'' trainings, said recently that there were no reasons for Armenia to refuse the participation in the upcoming maneuvers. Defense Minister of Armenian Serzh Sarkisian stressed that Armenia had to be ready to participate in any program of NATO. The Azerbaijanis are not very happy to have the Armenians as guests. In Baku they have already started to discuss the issue whether to accept the Armenian troops or no. But as it has agreed the maneuvers to be held in Azerbaijan, they have no way to prevent the participation of Armenia. Head of the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan Ramiz Melikov said recently that he did not rule out the possibility of Armenia's participation as the trainings are being held under the aegis of NATO.

For the first time after the Karabakh war the population of Karabakh will have to deal with armed Armenians. Though this time the weapons of Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers will be directed to the same target. These feelings are familiar for the Armenians though the Armenians had no problems in Yerevan to obey the orders of Turkish commander during the recent maneuvers. The trainings were being commanded together by Murad Isakhanyan and Turkish colonel Ahmed Kabak. The NATO leadership gave the command to representatives of countries that had problems with each other. The matter was to prove that despite all the problems the cooperation is possible. If this principle is applied during the preparations to the next maneuvers, the commanding will be carried out by Armenia and Azerbaijan. And then the Azerbaijani soldiers will have to obey the orders of an Armenian commander and the Armenian soldiers – of Azerbaijani commander. And this is what causes the concern of the Baku nationalists.