Azerbaijan, NATO mull cooperation in demining

Representatives of Mine Action Agency and other state authorities of Azerbaijan, headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Agency, Samir Poladov, were on a visit to NATO HQ on October 28-30, Report informs.

As part of the visit, meetings were held between the Azerbaijani delegation and officials from NATO, such as Orhan Muratli, Head of the Operations Support unit of NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), Stergios Isaakidis, Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) Programme Manager, Piers Cazalet, Director of the Operations Division, Eyup Turmus, Head of NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) unit, Krisztian Meszaros Director for Partnerships and Global Affairs, and Eirini Lemos Maniati, Head of the Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation section, along with the participation in the meeting of the Ad hoc Working Group on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and Mine Action (MA) of the Partnership and Cooperative Security Committee in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) format.

During the meetings, discussions were held on the current state of cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO in the field of humanitarian demining, the importance of the support of international partners in this field, the progress of the ongoing project within the framework of the Science for Peace and Security (SPS) program on innovative methods of humanitarian demining, as well as Azerbaijan's participation in other current and future projects within this program aimed at applying next-generation high technologies and innovative methods in demining.

The discussions also covered the organization of joint training and workshops in Azerbaijan with SPS, as well as the establishment of a NATO Trust Fund for Azerbaijan.

Additionally, the ANAMA delegation underlined that since November 2020, 410 Azerbaijani citizens have been killed or wounded by landmine incidents, emphasizing that landmines seriously hinder the return of former internally displaced persons (IDPs), delay restoration and reconstruction efforts, and cause significant humanitarian, economic, and environmental consequences, while also presenting information on the advanced technologies, such as mechanical demining equipment and new field-based approaches, that ANAMA employs to address the landmine problem.

Azerbaijan has a longstanding and successful history of cooperation with NATO in humanitarian demining, which continues to be one of the principal components of cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO.