NATO's disaster-preparation exercise in Armenia has begun, and the Turks taking part did not, in the end, cross the border:
More than half of the exercise participants are Armenian rescuers and firefighters employed by Yeritsian’s ministry. Ten others represent neighboring Turkey, with which Armenia has no diplomatic relations.
With the Turkish-Armenian border remaining closed, the Turks had to travel to Armenia via Georgia. Turkish officials indicated in July that Ankara might temporarily reopen the frontier for the exercise. Officials in Yerevan dismissed such possibility as public relations stunt.
NATO's website describes the exercise's scenario:
On 11 September 2010 at 09:05 a.m., an earthquake of 7.2 Richter Scale (equal to the moment magnitude) occurred in the Kotayk region of the Republic of Armenia. The hypocenter was located in 10 km depth, and the epicentre was located 8 km north-east of the city of Abovyan.
A high number of casualties have been reported (first estimations amount to 12,000 dead and 17,000 wounded) and thousands of buildings have been destroyed. The cities of Charencavan and Abovyan, as well as the adjacent rural communities are amongst the most affected areas.
The water supply and drainage systems of the region are no longer functioning. Means of communication, gas and energy supply systems, as well as infrastructure and means of transport are heavily affected. Fires have spread, the hospitals of the region have been destroyed and humanitarian organisations cannot operate anymore. Thousands of citizens have lost their homes. The international airport of Yerevan was affected by the earthquake but is still usable...
One Armenian analyst quoted by Regnum.ru, David Karabekyan, is not impressed, and thinks Russia should be doing this exercise, not NATO and especially not Turkey (translated from Russian by google):
"Why in the territory of Armenia should be a disaster? Why on [nuclear power plant] Metsamor, where every effort is made to ensure reliable security? Is it not logical that the event of an accident at the plant, which is a Russian company, using the victim engaged in Russian rescuers, not the armed forces of NATO? "Why Turkey gets a free access to the strategic object?".
One might ask, too, what NATO is doing conducting disaster relief exercises, but that is another discussion...
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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