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2021-02-23 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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Armenia seeks expansion of Russian military presence on its territory
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Armenia would welcome the expansion of a Russian military base on its territory and the redeployment of some Russian forces closer to its border with Azerbaijan after a conflict with its neighbor last year, its defense minister said on Monday. Ethnic Armenian troops in the Nagorno-Karabakh region ceded swathes of territory in and around the enclave to Azerbaijan in a six-week conflict in 2020 that claimed thousands of lives.
Russian peacekeeping troops are deployed in the enclave and, under a formal defense pact with Armenia, Russia has a fully-fledged military base in the city of Gyumri near the Ottoman Turkish border with an estimated 3,000 troops.
Russia said in November it was deploying almost 2,000 servicemen as part of the peacekeeping mission.
"The question of expanding and bolstering the Russian military base on the territory of Armenia has always been on the agenda," Armenian Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan told Russia’s RIA news agency in an interview published on Monday.
"The Armenian side has always been interested in this."
Harutyunyan did not say whether there were any concrete plans for a potential expansion.
Armenian opposition politicians have called for the creation of a second Russian base in Armenia’s southern Syunik region, wedged between Azerbaijan and the Azeri exclave of Nakhchivan. 
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Posted by Fred 2021-02-23 00:00||
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