Air Defense Agreement Discussed in Extraordinary Session of Parliament (Live)

At today’s extraordinary session Ara Nazaryan, RA Deputy Defense Minister, introduced the “Agreement on creating a united regional air defense system in the Caucasian collective security region between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Armenia” signed in Moscow on 23 December, 2015.

According to him, purpose of the agreement is raising the air defense level. The agreement has been signed for 5 years with a condition of extension.

Eduard Sharmazanov, NA Deputy Speaker, stated that this is an agreement coming from interests of Armenia and it should be ratified. In his words, as compared to Belarus and Kazakhstan, which signed a united system with Russia, in case of Armenia, it’s a unified system, that is, Armenia’s air defense maintains its independence and will be headed by Armenia.

According to MP Tevan Poghosyan, this is the first single case, when in Armenia-Russia relations the Armenian side negotiated and the command was left to the Armenian side. He was interested whether air defense commander will have enough courage to command “fire” and not to have any problem, that he may be punished for that.

Nazaryan stated that the command will be implemented by the Armenian side, and Russian resource is added, i.e. one point is added, including destructive aviation.

By Gayane Khachatryan