Armenia ‘jealous’ of Ukraine’s military coop with Azerbaijan
A Ukrainian analyst has said Armenia has always been "jealous" of Kiev's military cooperation with Azerbaijan, Armenia's long-time foe.
"Cooperation with Armenia in this field was an utmost failure," said Serhiy Zgurets, an expert at the Ukrainian Center for Research on Army, Conversion and Disarmament.
According to the analyst, information on supplies of Ukrainian weapons has never been concealed.
"The Ukrainian side has nothing to hide. In particular, in the past two years, anti-aircraft missile systems have been supplied neither to Azerbaijan nor to Armenia," Zgurets said.
Earlier, Ukrainian Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry as well as the Ukrainian Embassy in Baku denied the reports on the supply of arms to Armenia. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry labeled as a provocation the Azerbaijani media reports alleging that Ukraine sold multiple rocket launchers and mobile missile systems to Armenia in 2011.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Dykusarov said at a press briefing on Tuesday that Ukraine had been strictly observing its obligations assumed before the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as domestic legislation.
Armenia's Defense Ministry also denied the reports.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in conflict for more than two decades over Azerbaijan's Nagorno Karabakh region. Since a brutal war in the early 1990s, about 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory has been under the occupation of Armenian armed forces. Peace talks brokered by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.
Defying international law, the separatist regime in Nagorno Karabakh declared so-called independence in 1991, which has not been recognized by the world community.