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Armenia, Russia Discuss Closer Defense Industry Ties

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  • Armenia, Russia Discuss Closer Defense Industry Ties

    ARMENIA, RUSSIA DISCUSS CLOSER DEFENSE INDUSTRY TIES

    asbarez
    Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
    YEREVAN

    Armenia and Russia plan to significantly boost cooperation between
    their defense industries within the framework of a Russian-led military
    alliance of seven ex-Soviet states, top security officials from the
    two countries said after talks in Yerevan on Tuesday.

    Nikolay Bordyuzha, the secretary general of the Collective Security
    Treaty Organization, said the alliance has already launched a "pilot
    project" aimed at integrating Armenian defense enterprises into
    Russia's military-industrial complex.

    "Military-industrial cooperation with Armenia is one of the priority
    areas of CSTO activities," the Regnum news agency quoted Bordyuzha
    as telling journalists. He said "practical steps" already taken in
    that direction will bear fruit soon.

    "We will soon be monitoring the realization of agreements that were
    reached today," said Konstantin Biryulin, the deputy head of Russia's
    Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation with foreign states.

    According to Artur Baghdasarian, the secretary of Armenia's National
    Security Council, the agreements envisage, among other things, the
    establishment of Russian-Armenian defense joint ventures. He did
    not elaborate.

    The three men spoke at a joint news conference after two days of
    negotiations that also involved Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian.

    Bordyuzha and Biryulin visited four Armenian plants manufacturing
    weapons and other military equipment on Monday.

    Biryulin and other officials from his agency already visited Armenia
    last December for a session of a Russian-Armenian inter-governmental
    commission on bilateral military-technical cooperation. Under an
    agreement signed during the meeting, Russia and Armenia will work
    together in exporting arms and ammunition to third countries.

    The military alliance with Russia and, in particular, the presence of
    Russian troops on Armenian soil has been a key element of Armenia's
    national security doctrine since independence. Armenia has been
    entitled to receiving Russian weapons at cut-down prices or even free
    of charge also because of its membership in the CSTO.

    "In my opinion, the possibility of purchasing Russian weapons is
    the main privilege given to CSTO members states within the framework
    of military-industrial cooperation," Ohanian told the Interfax news
    agency on Tuesday. "I will not hide the fact that we pin big hopes
    on this sphere of activity."




    From: A. Papazian
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