YEREVAN: Russia-led regional security group began large-scale military exercises in Armenia on Saturday, the most significant war games ever to be staged in the ex-Soviet state, the defence ministry said.
Around 2,000 troops from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan are conducting five days of exercises run under the flag of the Collecti
ve Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), Moscow's answer to NATO.
"The military exercises are unprecedented in the history of the Armenian armed forces," Armenian Defence Minister Seyran Ohanian said at the launch of the Interaction-2012 sessions.
The aim was to create "a regional force that can neutralise potential threats", he said.
However the exercises could unsettle neighbour Azerbaijan, which is locked in a bitter unresolved conflict with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh. It does not want Moscow to side with Yerevan in any renewed outbreak of fighting.
Another neighbour, Georgia could also be unnerved by the close presence of Russian troops.
Georgia was defeated by Russia in a brief war in 2008 and still sees the Kremlin as a military threat.
Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) will also be involved in the exercises, said a statement from the Armenian CSTO office.
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