Epress.am News from Armenia
Azerbaijan and NATO are unable to agree on Azerbaijan’s Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) which lays out the program of cooperation between the South Caucasus state and NATO. According to the NATO official website, cooperative activities, reform plans and political dialogue processes are detailed in Azerbaijan’s IPAP, which was initially developed in 2005 with a second update in 2008. NATO and Azerbaijan have until October this year to agree on the latest version of IPAP, reports Milaz news agency, citing NATO sources.
Azerbaijan reportedly made amendments to the document which are considered unacceptable by NATO, and that might delay the process of ratification.
Azerbaijan notes that, according to the Military Concept approved in June, international experience should be used in the Azerbaijani army and historical traditions should be taken into account. In many cases, this doesn’t correspond with the first two stages of IPAP’s directions.
If not even two years ago, Baku was stating its readiness to correspond its military to meet NATO standards, then today the situation has changed.
“The approach by officials is the following: applying NATO standards is useful, however, a full transition to those standards they consider to be inefficient,” said Milaz’ unnamed source.