Armenia set to take part in European Games despite dispute

Armenia's National Olympic Committee (NOC) announced Wednesday that it will send athletes to the inaugural European Games set for later this year in arch-foe Azerbaijan.
"Armenian athletes have had some outstanding results in recent times and have serious chances of winning  medals at the European Games," Armenian NOC Secretary General Grachia Rostomyan, told a press conference.
"It is entirely up to the country's NOC to make a final decision on the matter."
However, the NOC decision has been hotly contested between the Olympic Committee chiefs and some of the country's sports federations bosses, who have opposed the idea of participating in the fledgling games to be held in Azerbaijan's capital Baku from June 12-28.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a festering decades-long dispute over the region of Nagorny Karabakh which Armenian-backed separatists seized in a bloody conflict in the early 1990s.
"There's no need for our athletes to go to Baku," Levon Julfalakyan, the country's Greek-Roman wrestling team squad head coach said.
"They will never get a fair deal for their performances in Azerbaijan."
His statement was backed by Armenia's gymnastics boss Albert Azaryan.
"Regardless of our athletes' performances they will never be given a chance to win in Baku by any means," he said.
"Armenia has a difficult relationship with Azerbaijan and the trip to Baku could become a pretty risky affair."
Meanwhile, the organisers of the European Games have already given security guarantees for the members of the Armenian delegation at the event.
The 2015 European Games will be the inaugural edition of an international multi-sport event for athletes representing the Olympic commitees of Europe.
The dispute between two former Soviet republics over the region of Nagorny Karabakh has its immediate roots in a war that left some 30,000 people dead after ethnic-Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized the territory from Azerbaijan.
Despite years of internationally-mediated negotiations since the 1994 ceasefire, the two sides have not yet signed a final peace deal.
Baku, whose military spending exceeds Armenia's entire state budget, has threatened to take back the region by force if negotiations fail to yield results, while Armenia, which is heavily armed by Russia, says it would crush any offensive.
Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but the ethnic-Azeri community -- which before the war made up around 25 percent of the population -- was entirely driven out.
Almost all of the current 145,000 population of the enclave is Armenian and the region has declared itself the Nagorny Karabakh Republic.
Source: AFP