Celeste Wallander, US Deputy Defense Secretary was hosted at the Armenian Defense Ministry. The US officer was interviewed by“Zinuzh” (“Armed Forces”) program.

Q.-We are very much interested in your estimation  of the Strategic Defence Review process in Armenia.

How would you evaluate Armenia’s participation in activities for sustaining international stability. As you know, Armenia  has recently increased its peacekeeping military  contingent in Afhganistan and assumed new tasks inclusing  the new mission of Armenian mentors to instruct the National Army officers in Afghanistan.

A - Thank you very much, thank you for your kind words. It’s really a pleasure to be back in Armenia. We have had discussions  today with the minister of defence covering the full range of issues and areas of cooperation which is now an extensive list. I commented to the minister that each time we meet we have more and more to discuss. And in particular I think it is important to understand the broad range of  areas of cooperation now.

We work with the ministry of defence of Armenia on its modernization  and its objectives, those are  clearly stated in the strategic defence review, which is a comprehensive document which was  worked out within the whole govenrment of Armenia,  and  so it’s a reflection of national priorities.

 And we are very privileged to be able to support  the Ministry of Defence  as it now moves towards implementing those priorities in professional development of officer corps and in particular NCO. So this is something exciting for us- a new area to work with the  ministry of defence on that area.

And also build on previous areas of success. You mentioned  in particlar the new commitments of five officers in addition to the tripling of Armenia’s contribution to ISAF, of particular importance is the mentor and liason mission that is now going to be fulfilled by 5 officers who, we are proud to be able to say,  have attended American military education courses.

So we feel particularly excited to know that they are able to use that experience in that work with American military now  in their mission in Afghanistan , which of course you know is of very high priority for  the US. Pr. Obama made very clear that the US is very committed and continues be committed  to  providing stability and security by supporting the development of the Afghan security forces . So we are very grateful to the Ministry of Defence for making that commitment and   contributing to that mission.

More broadly also we have been working with  the MoD in developing the institutional development of Armenia’s capability to contribute international missions through its peacekeeping brigade. So a lot of our cooperation activities which total in value for  this year  about a little over 12 million US dollars  in ther area of defence and  security cooperation,  a lot of those activities focus on  training  and planning, but also providing equipment, and working with the Armenian peace keeping brigade so that they are able to be ready to contribute not just to the ISAF missions but other missions as well.

It is very important for people to remember, that Armenians are also serving  in Kosovo as part to KFOR mission, we tend to forget about it, because it’s so successful, but I think it’s impotant for everyone to understand that the reason it is successful is because  so many partners have been willing to be there and  contribute to htis postconflict situation. So we are grateful for that support as well. So we have many things to talk about , we have many things to be working on in the coming year. We talked a little bit alsotoday about htat planning, but I am very grateful for such a broad area of cooperation and we look forward to continuing to work with the MoD.