Armenia’s Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan on Friday called for stronger defense cooperation between security organizations and allies to buttress regional security.
Tonoyan was speaking in Moscow at a joint session of defense ministers of CIS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) countries.
In his remarks Tonoyan said that recently escalation of disagreements is observed in the South-Caucasian region, which in his words are the consequence of some countries expanding their ambitions.
“The dynamically military-political developments in our region can be described as a conflict of geopolitical interests, the core factor of which is the absence of a common vision of security, as well as mechanisms for minimizing risks,” he said.
“Regional conflicts cannot be resolved by force, and Armenia considers both military rhetoric and attempts of involving new states in these conflicts with further escalation of the situation in the region unacceptable,” said the defense minister.
Tonoyan stressed that Russia’s presence in the region, as well as the deepening of the military-political cooperation between Armenia and Russia are highly important mitigating factors which contribute to regional stability and preservation of security.
He said Armenia’s strategic interests include not only the Caucasian region but the entire CSTO zone, as well as the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean region. The defense minister said Armenia is interested in peace and stability in these regions.
“In the current situation the further deepening and expansion of multilateral defense cooperation is becoming especially important—first and foremost between the CIS, the SCO and the CSTO, of which our countries are members,” Tonoyan said.
“Our world has become more interconnected. Any instability in any given region is fraught with negative consequences globally. In other words, in modern times, regional security is impossible to be ensured autonomously – outside of a global security system frameworks. The escalation of any regional issue is directly impacting overall international security. This relates not only to military-political issues, but also to the pandemic, which as the experience of the majority of countries showed grew into a global security problem,” Tonoyan said.
Armenia’s defense minister stressed that the international community’s main objective is to build sustainable peace which is based on ruling out the creation of new instability hotspots when some countries attempt to impose regional geopolitical ambitions.
“We proceed from the fact that the unequivocal preservation of international legal norms and principles play a critical role in preventing conflicts. The Republic of Armenia has always been in favor of the just application of international law and the right of freedom of choice, reasonable globalization and international security structure, based on a policy of refraining ‘from positions of force’ and maximalist approaches, hatred and bellicose statements,” explained Tonoyan.
Tonoyan indirectly reminds Central Asian leaders, who are part of CSTO, where the newly crowned Sultan of Turkey has the Ottoman’s ambition toward the Eastern fronts.
Glory to the Armenian /Artsakh Army. the ONLY real guarantor of Armenia’s security. WE should ALL BELONG TO IT..