Russia Tells Baku it is Not Hiding Military Cooperation with Armenia

Russian Foreign Ministry Affairs building. (Source: Gennady Khamelyanin/TASS)

MOSCOW (TASS News) — Moscow is not hiding its military-technical cooperation with Yerevan and asks Baku to treat this with understanding, Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.

“We already informed the Azerbaijani side via diplomatic channels that Russia and Armenia are connected by allied relations and develop military-technical cooperation as well,” Zakharova said.

“This is a well-known fact. We cooperate without hiding anything — transparently and openly. We hope that Azerbaijan will treat this fact with understanding,” she added noting that Moscow takes into account all risks in the region when it supplies weapons.

“Any weapons are delivered to Armenia or friendly Azerbaijan with careful consideration of necessity to preserve the existing balance of power in the region,” she said.

On Wednesday Azerbaijan has sent a note of protest to Russian Foreign Ministry over supplying Armenia with weapons. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry press service head Khikmet Gadzhiev said that supplying Armenia with weapons and military equipment “does not facilitate the settlement of the conflict” around Nagorno-Karabakh. In this respect, Baku “is expecting guarantees from the exporting country” that weapons and equipment will not be deployed along Azerbaijan’s border with Armenia or in Nagorno-Karabakh, he noted.