Home / Armenia / Armenia Offers Russia a Substitute for Azerbaijan

Armenia Offers Russia a Substitute for Azerbaijan

Armenia is ready to provide its territory for the construction of a Russian radar station, if Moscow and Baku don’t reach an agreement on the Gabala Radar Station.

“If there is such an interest our area, we are ready to discuss the matter,” Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said in an interview with the Russian paper Kommersant.

According to him, the range of such a station could be even greater than that of the Gabala Radar Station in Azerbaijan. “There might even be advantages here since Armenia is a mountainous country. The scope may be wider,” he said.

The radar station was built by the Soviet Union in the Qabala district of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1985. It was an important element of the missile defense system of the USSR and was intended to protect the southern borders of the Soviet Union. The radar station has a range of up to 6,000 kilometres and can pinpoint missile launches as far as the Indian Ocean. The radar’s surveillance covers Iran, Turkey, India, Iraq and all the nations in the Middle East. It can detect the launch of missiles and track the whole trajectory to enable a ballistic missile defense system to intercept an offensive strike. The Gabala Radar Station is now operated by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces.