NATO Responds Harshly To Azerbaijani Intransigence

Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic
Sept 13 2004

13 September 2004 — NATO has canceled military exercises that were
scheduled to start this month in Azerbaijan after authorities there
objected to the participation of Armenian officers.

NATO spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ludger Terbrueggen told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service today that the plan was scrapped after Baku refused
to issue the Armenian troops visas.

“The reason is that Azerbaijan will not give visas to the soldiers
and officers of Armenia,” Terbrueggen said.

NATO’s decision to scrap the maneuvers comes after Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev said on 11 September that he is opposed to
Armenian troops being on Azerbaijan’s soil.

Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan’s army out of the ethnic
Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s in a war that
killed 30,000 people and left about 1 million homeless.

A cease-fire was signed in 1994, but no agreement has been reached
on the territory’s final status.