Azerbaijan expresses its displeasure at U.S. by canceling military exercise
Azerbaijan has canceled upcoming joint military exercises with the U.S., in apparent protest of the U.S. role in negotiating better relations between Armenia and Turkey. Reuters:
Azerbaijan did not specify who cancelled the exercises planned for May, or why, but the U.S. embassy said it suggested "that the question be posed to the government of Azerbaijan".
An Azeri Defence Ministry spokesman told Reuters: "The exercises are cancelled, but the reason is not known."
APA has a roundup of Azerbaijani political analysts who speculate on the reason, though, and they all agree that it is all about an alleged pro-Armenian bias in Washington.
Last year's exercise took place under NATO auspices with several other countries taking part. In addition to the U.S. Bulgaria, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine were there. The exercise covered:
...the plans of checkpoint control, road security, preparation of confined documents, supply and materials, coordination, seizure and search of buildings, battle involving rules, preparation of regular and detailed reports.
One wonders: if Baku is cutting off these ties with the U.S. because it's brokering the deal, are they going to do something commensurate with Turkey, which is actually taking part?
Meanwhile, the CSTO anti-terror exercise in Tajikistan is proceeding:
An anti-terror drill for the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) Central Asian group, dubbed Rubezh-2010 (Frontier-2001), has opened in northern Tajikistan today.
Faridoun Mahmadaliyev, a spokesman for Ministry of Defense (MoD), says the drill has involved some 600 military personnel from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Representatives from Belarus are attending the exercise as observers.
The drill is conducted in two stages. The first stage (April 20-23) includes development of a joint ant-terror operation on blocking and annihilating illegal militant groups. The exercise will close on April 24 with a final phase at the Chorukh-Dayron training grounds featuring live-fire missions with six helicopters MI-8 of Kyrgyzstan, the spokesman said.
Of course previous reports -- which I can't find now -- said Kyrgyzstan, for obvious reasons, was going to sit out, so not sure how much we can trust that report...
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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