Armenia wants Israel to halt arms sales to Azerbaijan, but it is not making this a condition for improving ties with Jerusalem.

Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigor Hovhannisyan on Tuesday stated about the abovementioned in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.

The diplomat said Armenia would “welcome a situation” where Israel would do as the US and most European countries have done and not sell arms to either Armenia or Azerbaijan.

Hovhannisyan said there was no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict, and selling arms to Azerbaijan only fuels an arms race. He said that Armenia wants its friends to know that selling arms to Azerbaijan is “beyond a simple business transaction, and has consequences.” 

“We are not a very wealthy country, and we have to set aside a sizable part of our GDP to counter every time Azerbaijan gets their gadgets in Israel,” he said.

He added, however, that Armenia “does not exclude the possibility for us as well to cooperate with the Israeli defense sector.”

This is not a precondition for improved ties, Hovhannisyan said, “since we know some other third countries also do the same.”