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Karabakh Armenians Report Further Military Buildup

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  • Karabakh Armenians Report Further Military Buildup

    KARABAKH ARMENIANS REPORT FURTHER MILITARY BUILDUP
    Lusine Musayelian

    http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/24295400.html
    12.08.2011

    Nagorno-Karabakh - A military parade in Stepanakert.

    Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian-backed armed forces have acquired
    significant amounts of new weapons this year and will continue the
    military buildup in the months to come, their commander-in-chief
    announced on Friday.

    Lieutenant-General Movses Hakobian said the "military potential"
    of his troops grew by 20 percent in the first half of 2011.

    "During this period, the qualitative and quantitative state of our
    weapons and military hardware changed quite a lot," Hakobian told a
    news conference in Stepanakert. "Quite serious reforms were carried
    out with the restructuring of two army brigades.

    "We re-armed one artillery regiment with new systems. The anti-tank
    and air-defense means of a dozen battalions have been enhanced."

    "And this year we will receive more tanks -- two more divisions --
    and some of the weaponry of the army's air-defense system will be
    replaced," he said.

    Hakobian, who commanded some Karabakh Armenian units during the
    1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan, gave no other details of the buildup.

    Nagorno-Karabakh -- Lieutenant General Movses Hakobian, commander of
    the Karabakh Armenian army.

    Armenia, whose armed forces are closely connected with the Karabakh
    military, is likely to be the main source of the arms acquisitions
    reported by him.

    Its Karabakh-born Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian said last February
    that Yerevan obtained "unprecedented" quantities of modern weaponry in
    2010. "The expansion of our military capacity will continue in 2011,
    and it will be no less large-scale than it was in 2010," Ohanian told
    RFE/RL's Armenian service.

    Azerbaijan's leaders regularly threaten to forcibly win back Karabakh
    and Armenian-controlled territories surrounding the disputed enclave
    if the long-running Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks yield no results
    acceptable to Baku. The Azerbaijani government plans to boost military
    spending to $3.3 billion this year, up from $2.15 a year ago and just
    $160 million in 2003.

    Echoing earlier statements military officials in Stepanakert and
    Yerevan, Hakobian insisted that the Armenian side is undaunted by
    the Azerbaijani military buildup. He said the Azerbaijani army will
    suffer another defeat if it attempts to end the conflict by force.

    Still, the Karabakh general did not rule out the possibility of renewed
    war. "In my view, if Azerbaijan thinks that it can solve the Artsakh
    (Karabakh) problem by military means, the resumption of hostilities
    will be possible," he said.

    Hakobian noted in that context that instances of Azerbaijani troops
    opening small arms fire on Karabakh Armenian positions have increased
    drastically this year. He also spoke of their growing recourse to
    rocket-propelled grenades.

    "They fired at us from grenade launchers twice last year and ten
    times already this year," he said.

    Hakobian said last December that the Karabakh military has
    strengthened its defense fortifications along the entire "line of
    contact" with Azerbaijani forces lying east and north of the disputed
    territory. Ohanian likewise stated last year that those positions
    have been beefed up significantly.

    Nagorno-Karabakh -- Karabakh Armenian troops hold exercises,
    undated The Karabakh military chief was also asked to comment on the
    increasingly publicized problem of non-combat deaths among soldiers.

    The Karabakh army was rocked last year by two separate shooting sprees
    that left ten servicemen dead.

    In one of those incidents, a soldier gunned down four fellow conscripts
    and wounded three others in a dispute over music player earphones. He
    was sentenced to life imprisonment last week.

    "Right now we have around 5,000 soldiers [on simultaneous frontline
    duty] with weapons and live ammunition in their hands and the right
    to open fire at will," said Hakobian. "Due to a flawed psychological
    preparation and negative social phenomena penetrating the army,
    young soldiers commit crimes in some situations."

    Hakobian said the local military has stepped up the crackdown on army
    crime and already managed to reduce it. Two soldiers have committed
    suicide and two others have been murdered in their army units so far
    this year, he said, adding that all of those cases have already been
    solved by military investigators.

    In Hakobian's words, criminal charges are currently pending against
    244 Karabakh military personnel, including about 50 officers.


    From: Baghdasarian
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