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WE ARE DETERMINED TO EXPAND AND DEEPEN DEFENCE COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA
Mediamax
July 21 2010
Armenia
The exclusive interview of Celeste Wallander, US Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defence, to Mediamax.
[Correspondent] You held a number of meetings with senior Armenian
officials in Yerevan last Friday. Have you discussed the possibilities
of deepening the US-Armenian defence cooperation?
[Wallander] The primary focus of the conversations was our
determination to expand and deepen defence cooperation. When the
Secretary of State Clinton was here, she expressed the goal to
President Sargsyan that the United States and Armenia expand what we
are working on.
And this was an opportunity to focus specifically on defence
cooperation. I talked with both President Sargsyan and with Defence
Minister Ohanyan about increasing our support for training and
education of Armenian officers. There are other areas for developing
it, in particular, expanding Armenia's capacity for contributing to
international missions.
Armenia already contributes to missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan,
and the possibility for contribution to international missions is
always there, and we stand ready to help develop those areas.
We also talked about regional security issues, so that I can better
understand Armenia's concerns and views about issues, such as Nagornyy
Karabakh, but also broader neighbourhood and Armenia's relations with
countries in the region.
[Correspondent] US assists Armenia in the process of defence reforms
and conducting the Strategic Defence Review. What is your assessment
of Armenia's performance?
[Wallander] A big part of defence cooperation is about organizational
capabilities - through planning, processes, budgeting and also working
on staff. And we talked about the SDR. The USA and other countries have
been supporting that development and the process is going extremely
well. This is a foundation for being able to do defence programs,
to lay out priorities and assess relationships, interconnections and
then understand the plan to be able to implement.
So, that process has been going well and it provides that framework
for other areas of defence reform. We are working with Armenian
Defence forces to look at NCO (non-commission officer) development.
This is, we think, a good evolution of Armenia's defence forces. NCO
core is very important to how European and American militaries work
effectively. It has to be helpful for countries to have that kind of
model in military to make it easier to be interoperable with NATO
and to participate in NATO activities and NATO programmes. And we
were looking at other areas of staff development of the Ministry of
Defence's internal reform to make it more effective and partnering
in planning and executing various plans and programs.
[Correspondent] Many people in Armenia and outside don't believe
that full US-Armenian defence cooperation is not possible because of
close Russian-Armenian military alliance and the presence of Russian
military base in Armenia. What do you think?
[Wallander] That's a question for the Armenian Ministry of Defence.
>From our point of view, we don't see any obstacles to defence
cooperation because of Armenia's relationship with Russia. The United
States is now working on our positive and constructive relationship
with Russia, so it's not a zero sum context and we work with many
countries, who have good working relations with Russia, including
military cooperation relationship.
So, that's not, from my point of view, a constraint on the
relationship. And I don't speak for the Armenian Ministry of Defence,
but I did not get the impression that they thought it was a constraint
either.
[Correspondent] What do you think about the current level of
NATO-Armenia cooperation?
[Wallander] NATO assessment and US assessment of Armenia's
implementation of the IPAP over the past couple of years has been very
strong. Again, the planning aspect of the Armenian Defence Ministry is
strong. They have a good plan and they work to effectively fulfil it.
For our part, we have been talking about shaking our bilateral
defence cooperation to support the IPAP. When countries have a plan
for working with NATO, we, the United States, want to support that,
to find synergy in our bilateral relationship. Some of the programmes
that I just mentioned are not only making sense in our bilateral
relationship, but they are meant to support the IPAP.
[Correspondent] What do you think about the possibility of a new war
between Azerbaijan and Armenia? Azerbaijani top officials are openly
saying almost every day that they consider military solution as one
of the options.
[Wallander] We absolutely consider that there is no military
solution to the Nagornyy-Karabakh conflict. During her visit to
Armenia Secretary of State Clinton was absolutely unequivocal about
the need to be firm in the commitments regarding the non-use of force
and non-threat of use of force.
Armenia and Azerbaijan already went through one terrible war and that
experience hopefully will remind us that there is a required commitment
to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and there exists a mechanism
for working up a peaceful resolution. That does not mean it's easy. If
it were easy, it would have been resolved years ago. But just the
fact that something is not easy is not an excuse to not continue to
commit to that. There are constant engagements, Presidents Aliyev
and Sargsyan have met over the last months, discussions continue
and the United States remains committed as one of the Minsk Group
co-chairs. There are a lot of good ideas on the table and they are
being discussed. And we really believe that we will find a right mix
of ideas and proposals as long as parties remain committed to peaceful
resolution and to the process.
From: A. Papazian
Mediamax
July 21 2010
Armenia
The exclusive interview of Celeste Wallander, US Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defence, to Mediamax.
[Correspondent] You held a number of meetings with senior Armenian
officials in Yerevan last Friday. Have you discussed the possibilities
of deepening the US-Armenian defence cooperation?
[Wallander] The primary focus of the conversations was our
determination to expand and deepen defence cooperation. When the
Secretary of State Clinton was here, she expressed the goal to
President Sargsyan that the United States and Armenia expand what we
are working on.
And this was an opportunity to focus specifically on defence
cooperation. I talked with both President Sargsyan and with Defence
Minister Ohanyan about increasing our support for training and
education of Armenian officers. There are other areas for developing
it, in particular, expanding Armenia's capacity for contributing to
international missions.
Armenia already contributes to missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan,
and the possibility for contribution to international missions is
always there, and we stand ready to help develop those areas.
We also talked about regional security issues, so that I can better
understand Armenia's concerns and views about issues, such as Nagornyy
Karabakh, but also broader neighbourhood and Armenia's relations with
countries in the region.
[Correspondent] US assists Armenia in the process of defence reforms
and conducting the Strategic Defence Review. What is your assessment
of Armenia's performance?
[Wallander] A big part of defence cooperation is about organizational
capabilities - through planning, processes, budgeting and also working
on staff. And we talked about the SDR. The USA and other countries have
been supporting that development and the process is going extremely
well. This is a foundation for being able to do defence programs,
to lay out priorities and assess relationships, interconnections and
then understand the plan to be able to implement.
So, that process has been going well and it provides that framework
for other areas of defence reform. We are working with Armenian
Defence forces to look at NCO (non-commission officer) development.
This is, we think, a good evolution of Armenia's defence forces. NCO
core is very important to how European and American militaries work
effectively. It has to be helpful for countries to have that kind of
model in military to make it easier to be interoperable with NATO
and to participate in NATO activities and NATO programmes. And we
were looking at other areas of staff development of the Ministry of
Defence's internal reform to make it more effective and partnering
in planning and executing various plans and programs.
[Correspondent] Many people in Armenia and outside don't believe
that full US-Armenian defence cooperation is not possible because of
close Russian-Armenian military alliance and the presence of Russian
military base in Armenia. What do you think?
[Wallander] That's a question for the Armenian Ministry of Defence.
>From our point of view, we don't see any obstacles to defence
cooperation because of Armenia's relationship with Russia. The United
States is now working on our positive and constructive relationship
with Russia, so it's not a zero sum context and we work with many
countries, who have good working relations with Russia, including
military cooperation relationship.
So, that's not, from my point of view, a constraint on the
relationship. And I don't speak for the Armenian Ministry of Defence,
but I did not get the impression that they thought it was a constraint
either.
[Correspondent] What do you think about the current level of
NATO-Armenia cooperation?
[Wallander] NATO assessment and US assessment of Armenia's
implementation of the IPAP over the past couple of years has been very
strong. Again, the planning aspect of the Armenian Defence Ministry is
strong. They have a good plan and they work to effectively fulfil it.
For our part, we have been talking about shaking our bilateral
defence cooperation to support the IPAP. When countries have a plan
for working with NATO, we, the United States, want to support that,
to find synergy in our bilateral relationship. Some of the programmes
that I just mentioned are not only making sense in our bilateral
relationship, but they are meant to support the IPAP.
[Correspondent] What do you think about the possibility of a new war
between Azerbaijan and Armenia? Azerbaijani top officials are openly
saying almost every day that they consider military solution as one
of the options.
[Wallander] We absolutely consider that there is no military
solution to the Nagornyy-Karabakh conflict. During her visit to
Armenia Secretary of State Clinton was absolutely unequivocal about
the need to be firm in the commitments regarding the non-use of force
and non-threat of use of force.
Armenia and Azerbaijan already went through one terrible war and that
experience hopefully will remind us that there is a required commitment
to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and there exists a mechanism
for working up a peaceful resolution. That does not mean it's easy. If
it were easy, it would have been resolved years ago. But just the
fact that something is not easy is not an excuse to not continue to
commit to that. There are constant engagements, Presidents Aliyev
and Sargsyan have met over the last months, discussions continue
and the United States remains committed as one of the Minsk Group
co-chairs. There are a lot of good ideas on the table and they are
being discussed. And we really believe that we will find a right mix
of ideas and proposals as long as parties remain committed to peaceful
resolution and to the process.
From: A. Papazian