Epress.am News from Armenia
“After a special parliamentary commission meeting investigating the circumstances of selling expired arms from the National Moldovan Army’s arsenal to the Republic of Armenia, some media in our country actually distorted my words, attributing to me statements that Moldova will complete the deal and give Armenia the remaining consignment of arms,” said Moldova’s defense minister, Vitalie Marinuţa, as reported by the Baku-based news source Vesti.az.
The defense minister said, in fact, the deal was suspended immediately after the scandal broke out, and a process for revising the contract is currently underway, which has as its ultimate goal the annulment of the deal.
Recall, on Friday, Marinuţa was reported by the Moldovan press as saying: “There is no legal document that can prohibit [the deal]. I hope that the agreement will be implemented as soon as possible. There are no questionable provisions in this contract,” he said.
At the same time, Moldovan MP Alexandr Petcov, who is a member of the parliamentary commission investigating the Armenia-Moldova deal, told Vestiz.az that the value of the contract for the supply of Moldovan arms to Armenia is 3 million 200 thousand US dollars, but for such weapons Chișinău could’ve received $8 million, which a Bulgarian company was offering.
“Armenia generally appeared at the second or third stage of negotiations. Initially it was assumed that the arms were intended for Ukraine. Then suddenly Armenia appeared. Today I have every reason to believe that Armenia can receive not only missile launchers, which have already arrived here, but also such arms as Viola and Storm, as well as Grad multiple rocket launcher systems,” said the MP.
According to Petcov, the supplied weapons were produced in the late 70s and 80s and are in quite serviceable condition.