Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili yesterday said that a recent delivery of French armored personnel carriers (APC) to Armenia via Georgia will not interfere with Tbilisi's role as a mediator between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Darchiashvili stressed that Tbilisi allows Armenia and Azerbaijan to use its transit routes “equally” and added “any country has the right to have a defense force, and when it comes to conventional equipment or weapons permitted by international agreements, any state has the right to acquire it”. 

"Tbilisi’s position is to give both countries the opportunity to use the transit function that our country has under equal conditions. Thus, this is our response on the topic and any other insinuations are unnecessary”, Darchiashvili said according to the Georgian website Agenda.GE. 

On Sunday, Yerevan-based defense analyst Leonid Nersisyan posted that Armenia received the first batch of some twenty-one Bastion APCs via the Georgian port of Poti.

The Ouest France news site reports that the 12.5-ton troop carriers were initially intended for Ukraine, but Kyiv deemed them too poorly protected against artillery fire and anti-tank missiles.

Official Yerevan has not yet commented on these reports.

Photo: Georgian Parliament Press Service