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YEREVAN, APRIL 2, ARMENPRESS: Azerbaijan will not start a war in near future, for it is not confident of its own powers, Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on Defense, National Security and Inner Affairs Hrayr Karapetyan said today at a press conference. According to him, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will not start war, as in that case his power may shutter and lose the current resources.
“Azerbaijan realizes that the Armenian armed forces are more battle-worthy and powerful, and if Azerbaijan was confident of its own forces, it would try to solve Nagorno Karabakh conflict through the force of weapon. An army is not formed on the basis of oil products, especially in case when everybody knows who makes profit on that money,” H. Karapetyan said. In response to the remark of a journalist that the Azerbaijani military budget exceeds the Armenian budget several times, H. Karapetyan noted that in the 1990s, too, that country’s military engineering and number of the army exceeded the Armenia’s forces.
Referring to the upcoming spring draft H. Karapetyan said that works are carried out for conducting it on a higher level. “Though in the armed forces the corruption manifestations are less compared with other spheres, we must do our best for annihilating them all,” he noted.
Referring to the meeting held between Armenian second President Robert Kocharyan and American co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Robert Bradke, H. Karapetyan noted that he treats that fact normally; the whole world has such practice, when the former presidents have different meetings with the high-ranked officials of other states. “This fact means that there was a necessity of such meeting,” he said.
H. Karapetyan said that Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan have fulfilled during their tenure and are currently fulfilling their commitments for not registering losses in the issue of Nagorno Karabakh, which is a success. According to the member of the NA ARF faction, losses would have been registered in 1998, if there was no change of power.
H. Karapetyan welcomes the current way of activity of the current Armenian foreign policy directed toward the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. “The ARF does its best for carrying out lobbyist works in different countries. It will be possible to reach a progress in all the spheres only through joint efforts. One must not demand change of authority connected only with individuals. Systemic changes are needed.