No word about border opening
The talks on a temporary opening of the Armenian-Turkish border during the NATO military drills to be held on September 11-17 in Armenia are groundless, assure correspondents of the RA Ministry of Emergency Situations with which NATO is organizing this year's military drills.
Let us remind that the Turkish RADIKAL newspaper had informed that the Armenian-Turkish border would be opened during NATO's military-humanitarian military drills to be held on September 11-17 in Armenia in order to allow Turkish military columns to enter Armenia without any problems.
During the initial and final planning conferences organized within the framework of the NATO military drills, there was no mention of the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border. The Armenian, North-Atlantic and Turkish delegations didn't even make a proposal," Deputy Director of Armenia's Rescue Service of the RA Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergey Azaryan told "A1+".
Armenia's Rescue Service has been taking part in the military drills since 2003. According to Sergey Azaryan, within the framework of NATO's "Partnership for Peace" program, NATO's Euro-Atlantic Center for Response and Coordination of Disasters organizes military drills for member-organizations and partnering countries in one of those countries once a year.
"The Turkish side has always participated in these conferences with three to five delegates. This year they made certain reservations and mentioned that they would present their participants in August. The largest delegation has been the Russian delegation with 32 soldiers," said Sergey Azaryan.
The military drills called "Armenia 2010" will be held at "Lusakert" instructional center of the rescue service of the RA Ministry of Emergency Situations and near Arzni city in Kotayk province. Participating in the drills will be observers, experts and 20 rescue teams from NATO-member countries.
"There can be no discussion on a column series even from other countries. Some changes are also excluded due to the fact that everything is already planned," he added.
