Thursday, July 20 2017 14:33

ArmInfo. The presence of the Russian base on the territory of Armenia is the cornerstone of the security of the Republic, the head of the New York office of the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, Russian political scientist Andranik Migranyan is convinced.

According to him, the presence of a base in a country that is  equipped with good weapons indicates that it can be used if the state  that owns the military facility is interested in it. As an example,  Migranyan brought arms deliveries to Russia from Armenia from the  Akhalkalaki base during the Karabakh war. "Therefore, I think that  the more bases and weapons will be in Armenia, the better it will be  for us," the expert said on July 20 at a press conference in Yerevan.

Speaking about the sale of arms to Azerbaijan by Azerbaijan, the  expert noted that this is a serious problem.  "As a result of large  arms deliveries to the region, especially to Azerbaijan, an obvious  imbalance of forces was created. This became obvious even for Russia.  After last year's April war, in Russia, at the highest level, there  was an understanding that a serious imbalance of forces was created  in the region, which must be eliminated, "the expert believes. In his  opinion, this is the reason for the delivery of a large number of  armaments to Armenia after the April hostilities. At the same time he  expressed the hope that the Russian military leadership will keep  under close control the issue of maintaining the balance of power in  the region.

He also believes that Russia's sale of weapons to Azerbaijan is just  business. "Russia has repeatedly stated at various levels that the  world arms market is arranged in such a way that if not Russia, then  another country will sell weapons to Azerbaijan, and Moscow at least  knows exactly which weapons are on the balance of the Azerbaijani  armed forces," the expert said. He added that it was repeatedly  stressed that even if Russia, France and the United States stop  supplying arms to the region, this would not block the ability of  Azerbaijan to acquire weapons from other states, such as Israel or  Pakistan.

To the remark that many components for Israeli weapons are  manufactured by the US and, if desired, the latter could put a ban on  the sale of weapons by Tel Aviv Baku, Migranyan noted that the  influence of the Jewish lobby on the US is so great that Washington  will continue to turn a blind eye to the fact of Israel's sale  Weapons to the Azerbaijani side.