Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Soldier wounded in Azerbaijan
22.11.2010 11:54

Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 22 / Trend K. Zarbaliyeva /

A soldier wounded his colleague at an Azerbaijani Defense Ministry military unit by carelessly handling weapons.

Twenty-one-year-old Afgan Rahimov wounded 19-year-old Shahlarbek Agalarov, Deputy Chief of the Defense Ministry's Press Service Teymur Abdullayev told Trend today.

After being hospitalized, Rahimov underwent an operation. He is in serious condition.

Agalarov was called for military service by the Lachin Military Commissariat in January. Rahimov was called for service by the Mingechevir City Military Commissariat in January 2008.

An investigation is underway.

trend.az

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

22.11.10
Visit of the Armenian MoD’s Inspection Team to Turkey
On the 22nd of November, 2010 an inspection team from the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Armenia left for Turkey in order to conduct inspection in the framework of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). The inspection aims at verify the preservation of the quantity limitations on military equipment defined by the CFE Treaty. The announced location for this inspection was the unit located in the city of Bayazet.
This is the second visit of the Armenian inspection team to Turkey. In March, 2010 Armenian inspection was conducted in the framework of the Vienna Document 1999 and included verifications in the units located in Sarighamish, Ghars, Ardahan and Iğdır. No facts contradicting the Vienna Document were found.

ARM MoD Department of Information and Public Affairs

http://www.mil.am/eng/?page=2&p=0&id=1667&y=2010&m=11&d=22

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Soldiers Arrested Over Army Deaths In Armenia, Karabakh

November 22, 2010
YEREVAN -- Military officials in Yerevan reported today three arrests in the latest army shootings in the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh and in Armenia, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.

According to official reports, one shooting spree occurred November 19 at an army unit deployed southeast of the disputed territory of Karabakh and left four soldiers dead and four others injured.

The Karabakh Armenian military identified the dead and wounded soldiers but gave no details of the incident, saying only it was not caused by enemy fire.

An official at the Armenian Defense Ministry's Investigative Department told RFE/RL that one of the soldiers of the unit has been arrested on suspicion of shooting fellow conscripts. The official said his identity will not be disclosed "in the interests of the investigation."

It is not yet clear if the suspect is one of the four soldiers who was wounded in the shootout. Those four are being treated at a military hospital in Stepanakert, Karabakh's main city. Military authorities there did not allow journalists to interview the injured.

In the other incident, the Armenian Defense Ministry said two men have been arrested in connection with the killing of an army sergeant serving at a military base in the northeastern Armenian district of Chambarak, which borders Azerbaijan. Robert Avetisian was found dead at the base on November 18.

The shootings occurred about four months after a similar incident reported from another Karabakh-Armenian frontline detachment. One officer and five soldiers were killed as a result.

Military investigators say one of those servicemen gunned down the others before taking his own life. His motive is unclear. Several Karabakh Armenian officers were dismissed and demoted following the incident.

The department refused to identify the suspects or specify whether they, too, are soldiers serving in that unit.

The latest shootings are a serious blow to Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian's assurances that the Armenian military has stepped up its fight against hazing and other abuses within its ranks. The military has been under fire over a recent spate of noncombat deaths and other violent incidents.

Dozens of officers and soldiers have been arrested or fired since August in connection with those cases.

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/2227421.html

[Federate]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Armenian serviceman Robert Avetisyan was wounded to death in a military unit in Gegharkunik Marz.

Mary Sargsyan, a senior representative of the RA Defense Ministry, gave no more details.

According to our sources, Robert Avetisyan was hospitalized after contracting chicken pox. Avetisyan reportedly left the ward at about 2 a.m. after which he was found dead in a sentry post.

The knife found in the pocket of Avetisyan suggests that he had been called out to "settle a score."

Six bullets were found on the scene.
Investigation is under way.

http://www.a1plus.am/en/social/2010/11/19/army

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Family Horror, National Shame: Latest incident in Karabakh makes nearly one non-combat death per week this year in Armenian military


Report of the deaths of four Armenian soldiers in a border post of Nagorno Karabakh late Friday night raised a wave of panic and discontent both in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and, if proved as expected, would bring to 39 the number of non-combat deaths this year in the Republic of Armenia Army.

At around midnight November 19, four conscripts (Levon Yesayan, 19; Nerses Galoyan, 20; Narek Sahakyan, 20; Nver Sargsyan, 19) died from gunfire on the southern border of Nagorno-Karabakh, in Martuni region. Conscripts Sargis Melkumyan, 19; Khachik Alexanyan, 18; Masis Grigoryan, 19, and Manvel Hazroyan, 19, are wounded.

Though officials have yet to reveal the details of the deaths, they are excluding involvement of enemy troops from Azerbaijan. In other words, it appears the Armenian Army has suffered another case of multiple deaths at the hands of its own.

According to unofficial reports, the conscripts used their weapons to “settle accounts with each other”. One account is that one soldier shot the others, then attempted (or committed) suicide – repeating an almost identical incident from last June, when six soldiers were killed, also in Martuni.

One of the wounded soldiers – Manvel Hazroyan – is from the Armavir province village of Nalbandyan. According to Lragir online daily, Hazroyan’s family told the daily that their son was shot four times and is in critical condition.

On November 22, the Investigative Department of the Defense Ministry, released a statement saying that a criminal case, related to the incident, has been filed according to the Criminal Code of Armenia (Murder of 2 or more persons), at the MoD Investigation Service’s second garrison investigation department. One arrest has been made.

“Even if the problem is among soldiers, the commanders are to be blamed again,” says Arthur Sakunts, Head of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office.

Last week, on November 18, another non-combat death was registered in Chambarak village, Gegharkunik province. Junior Sergeant Robert Avetisian, 23, was found dead early on Thursday at his military base in what is believed to be another murder.

According to Sakunts’ organization, this year 34 non-combat deaths were registered in the army, prior to the latest.

http://armenianow.com/news/25996/incident_four_killed_karabakh

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Armenia: New Army Killings Raise Non-Combat Death Toll to 15 Since July
November 22, 2010 - 3:19pm, by Gayane Abrahamyan
Armenia Army Service
The non-combat deaths of four soldiers on the Nagorno-Karabakh frontline on November 19-20 are stoking fresh debate about the level of transparency and discipline within the Armenian army. The deaths raise to 15 the number soldiers who have died since July in violent incidents within the ranks.

Four conscripts, aged between 19 and 20 years old, reportedly were killed south of the frontline at around midnight on November 19-20 in what has been described as a scrap among soldiers. An additional four conscripts were wounded. The Ministry of Defense published the names of those killed and wounded in the incident, but no details have been released about it. The ministry, however, does report that it “is almost ruled out” that gunfire by Azerbaijan led to the bloodshed.

A main suspect, a conscript from the same army unit as the victims, is in custody in connection with the deaths, according to Ministry of Defense investigators. The individual, whose name has not been released, could get life imprisonment, or between eight to 15 years in prison, depending on the charges brought against him.

The incident was preceded by the November 19 killing of a 23-year-old sergeant stationed in the northern Armenian province of Gegharkunik. Two people were arrested on November 21 on charges of premeditated murder in connection with that incident.

Of the 15 non-combat deaths registered in the Armenian military between July and November this year, two have been officially classified as suicides.

After the first incident, a July shooting rampage that left five dead, public pressure began to mount on the Ministry of Defense to address the causes of the violence. On a November 19 trip to Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who formerly served as defense minister, asserted that “we will do everything to be able to save what is the most precious for us -- the lives of our soldiers and officers.”

The ministry has dismissed a number of senior officials, and has pledged to put an end to the violence, but some human rights activists argue that the government needs to do more. Armenia Helsinki Committee Chairman Avetik Ishkhanian contends that the recent deaths might be an indication that the army has become “uncontrollable.”

“After the latest cases, the authorities have finally begun to take some steps, but these steps do not produce results because they are either just pretending to do something, which I do not want to believe, or the situation is already too bad and has become uncontrollable,” Ishkhanian said.

Official statistics show that the number of non-combat deaths in the army has decreased by about 30 percent since 2005, but another human rights activist asserts that the information does not provide the full picture. Artur Sakunts, head of the Vanadzor regional branch of the Armenian Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, cites research done by his non-governmental organization that suggests that as many as 26 soldiers may have died this year in non-combat-related incidents. Another eight were killed in gunfire with Azerbaijani forces on the Karabakh frontline.

The Ministry of Defense, Sakunts claimed, was the original source of information for only 11 of those 34 cases. In the remaining 23 cases, the ministry simply responded to reports already in the public domain, he said. “The Defense Ministry is a closed system and we often do not know a lot about things happening there,” Sakunts said. “If not for public activism, we would not have known about these [23] cases, either.”

One Defense Ministry official, however, insisted that “the army is as open as our national security allows.”

“Reforms are being implemented and for their full results … time is required,” said Alexander Avetisian, deputy head of the ministry’s Legal Affairs Office, which is working on reform issues.

Criticism of conditions faced by army conscripts intensified in September after the release of a YouTube video that showed an officer beating and humiliating two soldiers. Online campaigns, launched on Facebook against the army and its commanders, demanded the resignation of Defense Minister Seihran Ohanian over the incident. In remarks last month, President Sargsyan alleged that those calling for Ohanian’s resignation “are trying to gain political dividends at the expense of the army.”

But the father of one shooting-incident victim insists that getting the word out about the violence within the army is the only way to stop the killings. “Many are now afraid, are in mourning and still do not realize that we must fight,” said Sargis Sargisian, whose 19-year-old son, Andranik, was killed in Karabakh on July 28. “They have lost their children. What else do they have to lose?”

Editor's note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62425

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Armenia to Inspect Turkish Military Bases for Compliance with Arms Treaty


YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–The Armenian Defense Ministry sent a team of military officials to northeastern Turkey on Monday for its second-ever on-site inspection of Ankara’s compliance with a key international arms control treaty.
A ministry statement said they will spend the next few days counting the military hardware and other equipment at a Turkish military base located in Dogubeyazit, a town close to the Turkish-Armenian border. It said they will try to verify whether the heavy weapons kept there exceed quotas set by the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty.
Signed in 1990 and revised in 1999, the CFE places specific limits on the deployment of troops and heavy weapons from the Atlantic coast to Russia’s Ural mountains. Armenia as well as neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan signed up to it after gaining independence.
Signatories to the treaty are allowed to inspect each other’s compliance with the arms ceilings through random visits to just about any military facility. Military delegations from Turkey and other NATO member states have regularly traveled to Armenia for this purpose since the mid-1990s.
It was not until March 2010 that the Armenian military first sent a group of CFE inspectors to Turkey. According to the Defense Ministry statement, they toured army bases in four other cities close to the Armenian border: Ardahan, Kars, Igdir and Sarikamis.
“No facts contradicting the Vienna Document were found,” added the statement.
Despite setting equal arms quotas for all three South Caucasus states, the CFE has failed to prevented an intensifying arms race between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The latter has been increasingly using its soaring oil revenues for a military build-up which Baku hopes will eventually enable it to win back Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian-controlled territories surrounding it.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have long been accusing each other of exceeding their CFE ceilings. Azerbaijan says that Armenia keeps a large part of its weaponry in Karabakh to imitate its compliance with the pact. Armenian officials, for their part, accuse Baku of obstructing international inspections of its military facilities.
The Armenian and Azerbaijani militaries have never sent CFE inspectors to one another in line with a gentlemen’s agreement dating back to the 1990s.

http://asbarez.com/88946/armenia-to-inspect-turkish-military-bases-for-compliance-with-arms-treaty/

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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan