MOSCOW (RFE/RL) — Military authorities in Yerevan and Moscow plan to sign an agreement on the establishment of a combined group of forces, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov announced in the Armenian capital on Tuesday following a meeting between the two countries’ defense chiefs.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu arrived in Yerevan to attend a regular meeting of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization’s defense chiefs on August 16 after paying a two-day visit to Azerbaijan where he reportedly discussed issues of military and military-technical cooperation with Baku as well as the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In Yerevan Shoygu also reportedly discussed issues of military and military-technical cooperation with Armenia as well as “current issues of global and regional security.”
According to the press service of the Armenian Ministry of Defense, “the two ministers stressed the high level of interaction of their agencies and determined further ways of cooperation.”
The sides also reportedly dwelled on the “large-scale humanitarian operation of the Armed Forces of Russia in Syria.”
“Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian expressed support and solidarity with the humanitarian efforts of the Russian Federation on providing aid to the Syrian people,” the report said.
