18 June 2024
French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced that Armenia has purchased an undisclosed number of France’s CAESAR artillery systems.
Lecornu met with Armenian Defence Minister Suren Papikyan in France on Monday, during which several new agreements were reached, including one signed between the Armenian Defence Ministry and French arms manufacturer, KNDS France.
Lecornu announced that the deal would include the acquisition of CAESAR systems on Tuesday, calling it a ‘new important milestone’.
The CAESAR is a long-range self-propelled howitzer that has received praise for its performance against Russian forces in Ukraine.
Armenian security analyst Tigran Grigoryan called the acquisition ‘big’, adding that France was ‘the only Western actor that really understands what's needed for stability in the South Caucasus’.
Eduard Arakelyan, a military analyst at the same think tank, told OC Media that this deal showed that France intended to supply Armenia with more lethal military equipment.
Arakelyan also noted that the acquisition would be a further step away from Armenia’s traditional reliance on Soviet-era and Russian equipment towards Western standards.
‘Armenia is transitioning from Soviet-calibre barrel artillery to the globally prevalent 155 mm calibre’, he said.
Previous similar equipment operated by Armenia relied on the Russian standard 152 mm equipment.
Arakelyan added that the CAESAR systems would complement two models of Indian-produced artillery that Armenia was also acquiring, the ATAGS 155/52 and MArG 155/39, which also fire 155 mm ammunition.
He noted that the number of systems being procured had not yet been revealed, suggesting that if it reached at least 18 units it would ‘indicate a deliberate strategy for the advancement of Armenian artillery’.
In October 2023, Armenia and France signed bilateral military cooperation deals to provide equipment including radars and anti-air systems to Armenia. France also dispatched a military attaché to the French embassy in Yerevan.
Following the deal in November, Armenia also received its first batch of French Bastion armoured personnel carriers, delivered through Georgia.
At that time Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hinted that Russian inaction in the face of Azerbaijani offensives in 2021 and 2022 had forced Yerevan to ‘diversify’ its relations in the security sector.
Russia, whose military is bogged down and experiencing shortages in Ukraine, has also reportedly delayed deliveries of previously purchased weapons to Armenia.
On Tuesday, Papikyan also visited the EUROSATORY international exhibition, where he held meetings with several Western defence firms. The Armenian Defence Ministry claimed that an unspecified number of contracts had been signed during the visit.
‘The Macron regime is an obstacle to peace’
Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry issued a lengthy statement condemning the deal to acquire French artillery.
‘The Macron regime, which pursues a policy of militarisation and geopolitical intrigue in the South Caucasus region, is an obstacle to the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the achievement of sustainable peace in the region’, they said.
‘We declare that the responsibility for any new escalation of the situation in the South Caucasus region and the creation of a new hotbed of war will be fully borne by the leadership of Armenia, which pursues a revanchist policy, and the Macron dictatorship.’
Since the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 and subsequent incursions into Armenia by Azerbaijan, France has become increasingly outspoken in supporting Armenia.
This has led to a straining of relations between Azerbaijan and France, most recently with France accusing Azerbaijan of fomenting deadly riots in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia.
In their statement on Tuesday, Azerbaijan again referenced events in New Caledonia.
‘As a colonial empire, France has historically had an abhorrent track record of creating hotbeds of war and conflict in various parts of the world’ they said.
‘The processes taking place in New Caledonia and other overseas colonial territories, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, the plundering of their natural resources, the changing of the demographic composition of those territories as a result of racist policies, and the repression of protests by blood and gun violence are indicators of the true nature of the Macron regime.’
‘Instead of solving such deep-rooted problems and putting an end to neo-colonialism, which is a remnant of a shameful colonial legacy, France is conducting a dirty propaganda and disinformation campaign against Azerbaijan’, they said.
[Read on OC Media: Opinion | How Azerbaijan uses ‘anti-colonialism’ to authoritarian ends]
