Armenia's defense minister, Seyran Ohanian, says that Armenia plans to buy "long-range, precision-guided weapons," though it hasn't specified of what sort and from whom. Reports RFE/RL:
Ohanian's announcement today followed a meeting of an Armenian government commission on national security that approved two programs envisaging a modernization of the country's armed forces. One of the documents deals with army weaponry, while the other details measures to develop the domestic defense industry.
Ohanian said the programs "will qualitatively improve the level of the armed forces in the short and medium terms."
"The two programs envisage both the acquisition of state-of-the-art weapons and their partial manufacturing by the local defense industry," Ohanian said. "The main directions are the expansion of our long-range strike capacity and the introduction of extremely precise systems, which will allow us to minimize the enemy's civilian casualties during conflicts."
Ohanian said that "their application will also allow us to thwart enemy movements deep inside the entire theater of hostilities." He did not specify whether Yerevan will seek to acquire surface-to-surface missiles capable of hitting targets in historic rival Azerbaijan.
One would assume these weapons will come from Russia. During the same press conference, Ohanian downplayed the still-unconfirmed rumors that Azerbaijan would be acquiring S-300 air defense systems from Russia, saying he didn't have any information that that was true, and that anyway it was a "defensive" weapon. Perhaps his confidence comes from actually knowing that the rumors aren't true?
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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