Epress.am News from Armenia
Azerbaijan is concerned by the presence of Russian troops in Armenia, said Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the president’s personal representative on issues related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Araz Azimov in an interview with the radio station. In his opinion, Russia needs to swap its military presence with economic activity in the South Caucasus.
“Unfortunately, Russia finds it necessary to keep its armed forces in Armenia. We see less and less reason for this military presence in the South Caucasus — it’s time to replace tanks with freight ships; that is, to exchange military presence with the economic,” he said.
Azimov believes that it is in Russia’s interests to persuade Armenia to accept the constructive proposals heard in negotiations.
Earlier, Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov expressed his opinion that the Russian military basis in the Armenian city of Gyumri won’t be used for “anti-Azerbaijani purposes.”
“Our military-political cooperation with Russia is also at quite a high level. I don’t think that the Russian military base in Gyumri will engage in anti-Azerbaijani actions that might contradict Azerbaijan-Russia relations,” he said in an interview with Interfax news agency.
Commenting on the development of Russia-Armenia relations in the area of security, Mammadyarov noted that Azerbaijan does not interfere in relations between Yerevan and Moscow.
“Russia itself has to decide how it strengthens and maintains its outposts. On the other hand, we certainly would like to see more transparency and openness to decisions so that everyone would know more clearly the position on which they stand,” he said.