Azernews.Az

BAKU – A senior Armenian defense official has said Yerevan is seeking a more efficient military at a relatively low cost in response to Azerbaijan's growing military spending, Radio Liberty’s Armenian Service reports.

Armenian First Deputy Defense Minister David Tonoyan told Radio Liberty on Monday that "asymmetry in military art implies inflicting unacceptable damage on the enemy with little force and fewer capabilities used."

Tonoyan said that as far as Azerbaijan is concerned, Armenia has developed "a strategic system of checks" that he claimed had stopped Baku from "breaking the current peace".

Earlier this month, Azerbaijan said it would spend $3.1 billion on its military in 2011 -- an increase of nearly 90 percent compared to this year. That would make the Azerbaijani military budget more than eight times the Armenian government's proposal of about $386 million for its military in 2011.

The two former Soviet republics fought a lengthy war in the early 1990s over Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region. Hostilities ended only after the warring parties signed a Moscow-brokered cease-fire agreement in 1994. The war claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about one million Azerbaijanis from their homes.

Sporadic skirmishes along the line of contact between the Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces have continued since the signing of the cease-fire. Both sides have suffered more than a dozen confirmed military casualties since June this year in skirmishes.

Tonoyan believes that by increasing its military spending Azerbaijan did not necessarily increase the "combat readiness" of its armed forces.

"It is at the least naive to expect a victory by only increasing military spending and purchasing arms. The outcome of a war is decided by much more important factors and the lessons of the Karabakh war should be learned [by Azerbaijan]," Tonoyan said.

He added: "It is already several years that we have witnessed preparations [in Azerbaijan] to solve the Karabakh conflict militarily. I think it is a matter of concern not only for Armenia, but also for the international community. Regardless of its outcome a war would have catastrophic consequences for the entire region."

Tonoyan said Armenia had a clear vision of a security environment for itself and the region, as well as "a realistic evaluation of the existing threats and a clear direction for neutralizing these threats."

He did not elaborate, however, what steps by Yerevan were implied.

Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-led defense alliance of seven other former Soviet republics. The treaty calls for a collective defense action should any of its members be attacked. Karabakh is not, however, Armenian territory and is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

As Moscow's closest ally in the South Caucasus, Armenia hosts a Russian military base and is also receiving Russian-made weapons either at low prices or free of charge.

A new Russian-Armenian defense agreement signed in August extends Russia's military presence in Armenia until 2044 and commits Moscow to supplying Yerevan with "modern and compatible weaponry and special military hardware."