No U.S. missiles on Armenian soil – deputy FM
14:01|09/ 03/ 2007
YEREVAN, March 9 (RIA Novosti) – Armenia’s deputy foreign minister
said Friday the Caucasus state was not considering the possibility of
deploying elements of a U.S. missile defense system on its soil.
A senior Pentagon official said March 1 that the United States would
like to deploy a radar base in the post-Soviet Caucasus, without
specifying in which country. The statement further strained relations
with Moscow already unnerved by earlier reports of U.S. plans to
deploy elements of a missile shield in Central Europe.
"I would like to make an official statement that we have not received
any inquiries or proposals on that score from the U.S. or NATO
commanders," Arman Kirakosyan said.
He said Armenia’s Foreign Ministry was unaware whether such proposals
had been made to Georgia and Azerbaijan, the ex-Soviet states in the
region that Russia has singled out as the most probable sites for a
U.S. radar.
Both Georgia and Azerbaijan have said they know nothing of the plans.
Kirakosyan said Washington was unlikely to approach Yerevan with such
a proposal in the future.
Armenia is a member of a post-Soviet security group, the Collective
Security Treaty Organization, which is dominated by Russia and
believed to have been created as a way of preventing NATO’s further
eastward expansion.
The Caucasus state has also sought closer ties with NATO under an
individual partnership program, which envisions joint exercises and
training for the Armenian military.
But in Armenia’s territorial conflict with Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh, the alliance has tended to back the latter, saying
that the region is under Armenian "military occupation." Conversely,
Moscow is more supportive of Armenia on the issue.
Russia, which is anxious about NATO bases emerging in former
Communist-bloc countries and ex-Soviet republics, has blasted plans to
deploy anti-missile systems in Poland, the Czech Republic and the
Caucasus as a national security threat and a destabilizing factor in
the world.
Washington said the defenses would be designed to counter possible
strikes from Iran, which is involved in long-running disputes with the
international community over its nuclear programs.