The Washington Times Thursday, April 10, 1997 Armenia Armed by Russia for battles with Azerbaijan Scandal compared to Iran-Contra By: Martin Sieff The WASHINGTON TIMES Russia secretly has shipped more than $1 billion worth of arms to Armenia, apparently to be used against - pro-Western Azerbaijan and - to force the Azeris -and their strategic oil reserves into Russia's orbit. Aman Tuleyev, minister for relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States, has acknowledged that Moscow supplied Armenia with 84 T-72 main battle tanks, 72 heavy howitzers, 24 Scud missiles with eight launchers, 50 armored personnel carriers and millions of rounds of ammunition. Lev Rokhlin, the chairman of the Defense Committee of the Duma, the lower House of the Russian parliament, told a closed Duma session April 2 that Moscow had -shipped $1 billion worth of weapons to the tough, nationalist government of President Levon Ter-Petrosian in Yerevan. His report was similar to Mr. Tuleyev's acknowledgment. Between 1992 and early 1994, when the conflict was at its height, Russian heavy transport aircraft were said to have ferried 1,300 tons of ammunition across the Caucasus to the Armenian capital. Most of the tanks were flown in aboard giant Antonov planes from the city of Akhtubinsk. The Azeris say Russia also supplied 1,000 hand-fired Strela-2 and Strela-3 anti-aircraft missiles, which were moved by ship across The Caspian Sea, then sent over land through Iran to Armenia. Iran has denied playing any role. Western intelligence sources said The weapons played a crucial role in Armenia's, seizure of large areas of Azerbaijan, which created a million refugees, more than from any other conflict in Europe since World War II. Although Russia's military support for Armenia in its long conflict with Azerbaijan has been well-known, the extent of the arms transfers came as a surprise. Responding to the revelations, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered a major government probe Saturday that could implicate his longtime defense minister, Marshal Pavel Grachev who was fired last spring. Russian military prosecutors are considering calling Marshal Grachev in for questioning over the scandal, which has been compared to The Iran-Contra affair. The- chairman of the Azeri parliament, Murtuz Alesketov, said Saturday the arms shipments could destabilize the Caucasus. "If these arms are not returned, this could lead to a new large-scale war in the region" he said at parliamentary hearings in Baku. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Shi'ite Muslim Azerbaijan has eagerly courted American oil companies to help it develop the immense oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Sea, estimated as second in size and value only to those in the Persian Gulf. Russia has responded by backing Orthodox Christian Armenia, its historic ally. On March 29, shortly after Mr. Yeltsin's Helsinki summit with President Clinton, the Russian leader finalized a treaty of friendship and strategic partnership with Mr. Ter-Petrosian. The move came after Mr. - Ter-Petrosian alarmed Azerbaijan by appointing The hard-line leader of ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbajjan, as prime minister of Armenia, a move widely regarded as paving the way for a renewed attack on Azerbaijan. There are at least 20,000 Russian 4th Army troops in Armenia concentrated around three major bases. Ivan Rybkin, head of Russia's Security Council, said after a meeting in Moscow with Mr. Ter-Petrosian on March 27 that the new bilateral treaty would have a "military component", the Moscow newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported March 28. Some Moscow analysts believe that Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and his supporters leaked details of the arms deals now to prevent Mr. Yeltsin from bringing back Marshal Grachev as chief military inspector at the Defense Ministry, the independent Moscow newspaper Segodnya said.