By Anna Ghazaryan

YEREVAN. – The Salamanca Band and Bugles Of The Rifles British Army band will perform in Yerevan in coming days. Armenian News-NEWS.am correspondent interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Nick Wilkes, UK Defence Attaché Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan.

The British military band is expected to perform in Armenia in coming days.  Please, tell us  the details. Whose initiative was it?

I am very excited to bring the band of British army. They will be performing in Yerevan on Sunday at the Cascade, on Monday they will be visiting Spendiaryan and Tigranyan music academies. On Tuesday they will be performing at Freedom Square, outside the Opera House, and on Wednesday is the highlight of the whole visit which will be a concert in Republic square where they will be joined by the band of the Armenian Ministry of Defense. All of these concerts are free and we expect many people to come.

I am very conscious that we are trying to further cultural relations as well as economic, and I thought it was a good opportunity to make both defense relations and cultural relations closer by bringing one of our bands to Armenia. Part of the events will be marching display, and a very fast one. This is a tradition of this regiment. The performance that they give when they march is traditional, but the music is specially chosen.

Is this a traditional British band having an old history?

It is. The band is from the regiment called the Rifles, and the Rifles have been in existence for 200 years. The band is actually called the Salamanca Band. In the British Army we keep the traditions and customs from many years. We keep traditional elements of the uniform. It is part of UK's new initiative where the British Army have allocated elements of the army to support embassies in different parts of the world. So, this battalion will help me with defense engagement.

Not much is spoken about the defense projects of UK and Armenia, the mission of Defense  Attaché in the South Caucasus, and in particularly in Armenia. What projects do we have in this field?

As the Defense Attaché my major role is to further defense cooperation between UK and Armenia, and most of this is through offering members of the Armenian Armed Forces opportunities to train in the United Kingdom. For example, this year we are sending a male and a female student to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. She will be the first ever Armenian cadet. Other elements are English language trainings together with the British Council. We provide training opportunities at some of our military establishments in UK and Europe. We bring experts  to carry out courses in Armenia, too. Our next event is in association with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations. We are hosting a group that will look at our emergency services and disaster relief organizations. We can both learn things from each other.

We have recently witnessed escalation at the line of contact and border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Did UK express concern to the authorities?

The UK is of course concerned about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, but it is concerned about situations in many parts of the world as well. We trust that both Armenia and Azerbaijan will continue with a diplomatic solution to this, because the last thing that anybody wants would be return to full-scale military operations. Whenever UK talks about this, we encourage both sides to maintain a dialogue and try to find a diplomatic solution. We continue to trust the Minsk Group process.

You are representing UK in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. What are peculiarities of your work in these countries?

As the Defense Attaché to all three countries, my mission is to run defense cooperation program in each of the three states. It is very different in each of the countries, because each has different priorities. For example, in Armenia I concentrate on things such as English language training, furthering opportunities for interoperability with NATO to enable Armenia to provide more troops to our mutual peacekeeping interests all over the world. Each country is very different, but what I am attempting to do here in Armenia is to further the relationship and help, in any way that we can, to further the capability and the skills of the Armenian Armed Forces.

Armenia is contributing to NATO peacekeeping operations being a CSTO member.  What do you think about Armenia's cooperation with NATO? What our country can bring to the bloc?

The main important thing to say is to thank Armenia as a great partner to NATO, as they provided troops to ISAF mission in Afghanistan, they provided them to Kosovo and Lebanon. That is very important. We would encourage Armenia to do this and we continue to enjoy a fantastic relationship with them as a valued partner nation of NATO.