Military exercises in Armenia and Azerbaijan simulate war resumption

Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have held, and Azerbaijan has announced exercises that imitate a sharp aggravation of military confrontation in the region.

According to the scenario of "Shant-2018" exercises, held on September 11-13, Armenia returned the conditionally lost territories, Artak Davtyan, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, has stated.

According to the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the exercises are intended to raise the readiness level of Armenia's state system during a transition from peace to war.

On September 13, within the framework of the command-staff exercises "Shant-2018", the National Assembly of Armenia simulated the situation with the adoption of a decision to declare war.

On September 13, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) responded with a sharp reaction to the scenario of the exercises held in Armenia and the imitation of war declaration within them.

"While Azerbaijan is taking constructive steps towards the settlement of the conflict through negotiations with the mediation of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, the new government of Armenia continues Sargsyan's policy, putting the region face to face with new military adventures and threats," says the comment of Khikmet Gadjiev, the spokesman of the Azerbaijani MFA, disseminated on September 13.

In its turn, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Azerbaijan announced large-scale operative-tactical exercises to be held on September 17-22, involving more than 20,000 servicemen.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 14, 2018 at 01:32 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.