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Azerbaijan’s armament cannot but worry Armenia, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan told reporters on the sidelines of the Yerevan-hosted forum on “Political and Security Guidelines for the Formation of the Military Component of CSTO.”  

“However, military technical cooperation with Russia is on a high level, and we do our utmost to maintain the balance of forces not only in a quantitative but also a qualitative sense,” Mr Ohanyan added.

According to the Minister, the transparency of that cooperation makes each delivery of military equipment and each violation of the balance controllable.

Russia as a strategic partner imposes some obligations on regional countries so that they will not use that military equipment, said the Minister. He stressed that Armenia has close relations with Russia, which is proved by the agreement on military technical cooperation signed between the two countries on June 25.

“So the situation is under control. We have repeatedly said that the Azerbaijani leadership is trying to involve Armenia in the arms race. But we are not going to be blindly drawn into the arms race with Azerbaijan. We rather pay attention to quality,” Mr Ohanyan concluded.