Azerbaijan and Armenia exceed quota provided with Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty

"Every year we exchange with information on the quantity of arms and this year we recorded that Azerbaijan has purchased a large quantity of arms, which exceeds quota provided with CFE. We consider that this issue must be settled in bilateral talks," NATO Secretary-General's Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, Robert Simmons told journalists while visiting Baku, APA reports.

Commenting on the matter of assigning civilian at the post of Defense Minister, Robert Simmons said that he did not recommend that Defense Minister must be civilian: "We always draw attention to that a civilian control must be implemented on the draft of Defense Ministry's budget and this must be transparent for parliament. We think that the Defense Ministry should become more civilian. Technical experts and civilians should work there. But it should not mean that we insist on defense Minister's civilian status."