Epress.am News from Armenia
In the yet unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), everything is “all grown-up” as in a real state. There is even a Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where visitors from abroad must register and obtain an accreditation card, writes military journalist Viktor Litovkin in the Independent Military Review.
“NKR Defense Minister Lieutenant General Movses Hakobyan told me that the enemy attempted to move into their territory thirty times this year, with their intelligence and subversive groups. Twenty-nine of these attempts failed. Once the enemy managed to kill 4 Karabakh soldiers, wounding 4 more. It’s true that the saboteurs were then destroyed,” writes Litovkin.
“I’ve said and will continue to say that it’s possible to maintain the ceasefire only thanks to the Nagorno-Karabakh army. We respect the OSCE Minsk Group, the other negotiators, and their efforts to find a way out of the conflict, but our only hope is our armed forces. Because if the enemy decides to use the army to achieve its goals, he will do it,” said Hakobyan, according to Litovkin’s piece, which continues as follows:
Service in the trenches takes place on a rotational basis. As for how long the ‘watch’ lasts, they didn’t tell me, it’s a secret, but they agreed that the NKR army is in the trenches. Sixteen years after the armistice, NKR is ‘being buried in the ground’.”
Asked what is the size of the NKR army, if it’s not a secret, Hakobyan said, “No, it’s not a secret. I can name a figure. 146,600 people serve us. That is the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
An interesting detail. Interviewing soldiers in the trenches regular conscript Artur Igityan and Junior Sergeant Gevorg Galustyan, I ask them where they’re from. One after another answers: Yerevan and from the Ararat valley of Armenia. Immediately flies out the officer who accompanied me to the NKR Ministry of Defense and adds, their ancestors were from Nagorno-Karabakh: one from the region of Hadrut, the other from Stepanakert. As for the parents of my third interlocutor Valery Hakobyan, it turned out, work in Russia.
“They are volunteers, says a NKR Ministry of Defense representative, and adds, “They came to us and expressed their desire to serve in our army. We cannot refuse’.”
I recall my conversation with First Deputy Defense Minister David Tonoyan. I asked him about the official relations between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Yerevan has not yet recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state. But how is it that Armenian youth from not only Armenia, but also Russia serve in NKR?
“In our military doctrine and national security strategy it is written,” said Tonoyan, “that the Republic of Armenia is the guarantor of security of the Nagorno-Karabakh people.” With all the resulting components.
And I think, how great, everything here is organized in such an adult-like way. Armenia guarantees Nagorno-Karabakh’s security, while Russia, as Armenia’s military ally, guarantees Armenia’s security. This was confirmed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during his last visit to Yerevan, in the agreement signed with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. And then there is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes among its members Russia and Armenia. And who will now dare to attack Nagorno-Karabakh with all its consequences? asks Litovkin.
Note that the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan after a bloody war in the 1990s and is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. Today it exists as a de-facto independent state under an uneasy ceasefire, and OSCE-brokered efforts to resolve its status have so far been unsuccessful.