AZERBAIJANI DM CALLS ON HIS CIS COUNTERPARTS TO CALL ARMENIA AGGRESSOR

Today, Azerbaijan
May 31 2006

Today Baku is hosting the 50th meeting of Board of Defense Ministers
of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

As APA reports, the meeting has brought together the CIS executive
secretary Vladimir Rushaylo, delegations from Defense Ministries of
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Russia and Ukraine as well as delegations of the CIS Executive
Committee and Defense Ministers Board Secretariat.

Addressing the meeting, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev
said Azerbaijan is having military cooperation with international and
regional organizations and attaches great importance to its activity
in the CIS Board of Defense Ministers. Touching on economic successes
Azerbaijan achieved during its 15-year of independence, the Minister
stressed that the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict poses a great obstacle
to improvement of these successes.

“There is a great deal of uncalculated military equipment and supplies
in the Azerbaijan’s territories under Armenian occupation currently
and terrorists are trained there. There is illegal traffic in arms
and weapons of mass destruction and illicit drugs transferred to
different regions of the world from there,” Minister Abiyev underlined.

Abiyev also reminded that Armenia ignores the UN Security Council’s
four Resolutions on unconditional withdrawal from Nagorno Karabakh
without further delay. The Azerbaijani Defense Minister addressing
his counterparts said it is high time to take a fundamental and
objective stance.

“Armenia should be called aggressor and Yerevan should be demanded to
comply with international legal norms and withdraw from the Azerbaijani
territories it has occupied,” he stressed.

He also noted that CIS’s existence much depends on its ability to
solve the conflicts in the Commonwealth territory.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov called the meeting efficient
at the new conference following the closed meeting. He said they
discussed military and military-technical cooperation and adopted a
decision on improving the structure of working bodies of the Board.

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