President of Armenia has traveled to Brussels, where he will meet Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg. This news has brought that a memory: a story that happened in the times, when NATO was more principled and bold.
In 2003, for the first time in its history, Armenia hosted Cooperative Best Effort military exercise within the framework of NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme. The exercise was a big success. Not only Turkey but also Russia took part in it, a fact that was later highlighted by the chairman of NATO Military Committee.
The next Cooperative Best Effort military exercise was to take place in Azerbaijan and Armenia had initially stated it would participate.
Azerbaijan did everything to hinder Armenian military’s participation. When Armenian officers left for Baku to attend the first preparatory conference, the conference room was attacked by extremists from the “Karabakh Liberation” organization.
Despite all that, the official Yerevan had no intention to change plans and insisted on participating in the exercise. The Azerbaijani Embassy in Georgia still refused to issue visas to five Armenian officers. In response, on the day the exercise was to begin - September 13, when all delegations and troops already gathered in Baku, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. General James Jones canceled the Cooperative Best Effort-2004 exercise. He reasoned that Azerbaijan had violated the basic principle of holding military exercises within the framework of PfP programme, i.e. that they should be open to all partner countries. By the way, during the visit to Yerevan in the spring of 2004, Deputy SACEUR Charles Wald said that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had personally assured him that Armenian servicemen would be able to take part in the exercise.
At that time, NATO did not forgive Aliyev for lying or violating the principles of Partnership for Peace programme. Today NATO is turning a blind eye to the war unleashed by Aliyev, simply issuing similar “we support the OSCE Minsk Group” statements one after another.
Ara Tadevosyan is Director of Mediamax.
Comments
Dear visitors, You can place your opinion on the material using your Facebook account. Please, be polite and follow our simple rules: you are not allowed to make off - topic comments, place advertisements, use abusive and filthy language. The editorial staff reserves the right to moderate and delete comments in case of breach of the rules.