NEW PROBLEMS AND NEW THREATS
By David Petrosyan

The military rhetoric of the higher political circles of Azerbaijan
has strengthened. Perhaps, we may consider as its peak the speech of
President Ilham Aliyev made on June 22 of the current year, during
the solemn ceremony dedicated to the regular graduation at Heydar
Aliyev higher military school of Azerbaijan. During his speech Ilham
Aliyev especially emphasized that:

– the expenditures in the defence sphere have increased
for eight times during the four years of his presidency,

– the military expenditures take the first place in
Azerbaijan’s state budget today,

– Azerbaijan buys up a great number of arms, ammunition,
military equipment and military planes,

– Azerbaijan does not want to solve the problem by war,
but should be ready for this.

And further some key phrases of President Ilham Aliyev characterizing
the moods of the official Baku:

– Nagorno Karabakh will be never given independence. If the
international community did not recognize the independence
of Nagorno Karabakh in mid-1990-s, when Azerbaijan was
insufficiently strong economically and politically, it
will never recognize its independence, when Azerbaijan
has become a strong state. Nagorno Karabakh will be never
joined with Armenia. The sooner they understand this in
Armenia and in Nagorno Karabakh, the better for them,

– No matter how hard they try in Armenia to misrepresent
the course of the negotiations, it is no use, as everybody,
including the Armenian party and the country-co-chairs
of the Minsk Group immediately engaged in that issue,
knows about the principles, on the basis of which the
negotiations are carried on. These principles will help
us return all occupied lands of Azerbaijan, will enable
Azeris to return to their native hearths, including in
Nagorno Karabakh. Only after this the future status of
Nagorno Karabakh can be discussed,

– the Armenian party, in the interests of its
domestic policy, often misrepresents the content of
the negotiations. Azerbaijan will never, neither today
nor after 10 or 100 years give consent to the agreement,
which may result in Nagorno Karabakh’s separation from
Azerbaijan. This will never happen. I am sure that the
sooner they understand this in Armenia the better for them.

There were many other interesting things further, but, in our opinion,
in the context of the above mentioned it would be useful to return to
the armed forces of Azerbaijan. Thus, according to the information
of Russian military sources (for instance, A. Tsiganok, "The Levers
of Force of States of Big Caucasus") for 2005:

– the armed forces of Azerbaijan include personnel of
95 thousand men, including: 85000 people in the Land
Forces, 8000 people in the Air Forces and anti-aircraft
defence, 2000 people in the naval forces. The National
Guards includes 2500 people, the troops of the Ministry
of Internal Affairs 12000 people, the frontier guards
5000 people,

– the land forces consist of five army corpses. The first,
second, third army corpses are located in Nagorno Karabakh,
the second army corps partly covers the Azeri-Iranian
border. The fourth (Baku) corps covers the capital and
the sea coast, the fifth is dislocated in Nakhichevan,

The Land Forces include 292 tanks, 706 units of armoured cars
(part of these cars belong to the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
the National Guards and the frontier guards), 405 guns and mortars,
reactive systems of volley fire BM-21-75, PTUR-370,

– the Air Forces include 61 military planes and
helicopters, 46 planes and helicopters of the auxiliary
aviation,

– the naval forces include 14 battleship ships and
launches, 22 auxiliary vessels, but due to the disrepair
of the ships and lack of specialists of the Navy, today
they are unable to fulfil the tasks set.

Simultaneously with Ilham Aliyev’s statements, rather many publications
appeared, which frankly intimidated Armenia and its society with
the threat of a coming war with Azerbaijan, which currently has
a military budget considerably exceeding the Armenian one (912m
USD against 270m USD). In particular, extracts from the American
Internet site Stratfor were published in a number of Armenian
editions of pseudo-liberal orientation. These extracts, in our
opinion, intentionally accentuate attention on the difference in
the militray budgets of the two countries, but also draw off public
opinion, including the American one, from the fact that Azerbaijan
violates the provisions on quotas for offensive armament established
by the Agreement on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. It should
be mentioned that according to the Agreement, a peculiar quantitative
limit (quota) on conventional offensive armament has been established
for Azerbaijan, as well as for Armenia and Georgia. None of the three
South Caucasian countries has the right to have in its armed forces
more than: 220 tanks, 100 military planes, 50 military helicopters,
220 armoured cars, and 285 artillery systems.

After all, one can criticize Baku for its high military budget as much
as he wants (we, in particular, mean harsh criticism of Baku in August
last year by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU Commissar for Foreign
Relations), but, in principle, this is, in essence, intervention
into the internal affairs of that country. Everybody knows that
Azerbaijan sells oil, and how to spend the gained petrodollars, this
is, after all, its own business. But the violation of the Agreement
on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe is not Azerbaijan’s internal
affair at all. The international community’s reaction to this is
rather weak yet. On the whole, unless we take into consideration
the two statements of Robert Simmons, the Secretary General of NATO
to the South Caucasus, who spoke about NATO leadership’s anxiety
about Azerbaijan’s exceeding the Agreement’s quotas, we can say that
the position of the international structures, for the present, is
mainly contemplative. We very much would like to hear the opinion
on violation of Agreement’s quotas, for instance, of:

– the NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,

– the Chairman of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly,
Pierre Lelouch,

– the Secretary General of CSTO, Nikolay Bordyuzha,

– the Special Representative of the EU in the region,
Peter Semneby,

– the new leadership of OSCE in the person of its
Chairman-in-Office, Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos.

And lastly, we very much would like to learn the reaction on violation
of the Agreement of the Russian and French Foreign Ministries, as
well as the U.S. State Department. Everybody knows that the very
countries are Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh
and have been mediators at the negotiations between two out of three
conflict parties (Armenia and Azerbaijan) for a long time. How are
they going to persuade the leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan to
sign some document/ agreement on the principles of conflict settlement
if they fail to ensure Azerbaijan’s fulfilling the Agreement? Why,
not fulfilling the commitments on the already operating Agreement
on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, should Azerbaijan fulfil
its commitments on the other one (we mean a possible agreement on
the principles of Nagorno Karabakh settlement)? Why should they in
Yerevan and Stepanakert believe the supposed guarantors of agreement
from Washington, Moscow and Paris, if they fail to achieve Baku’s
fulfilment of its commitments within the framework of the Agreement on
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe? Can Yerevan and Tbilisi, making
use of Baku’s violating the Agreement, also violate the established
quotas on offensive armament, and what results will this have in
the end?

We suppose that at present the Agreement on Conventional Armed Forces
in Europe is just one of the corner stones of regional security, the
observance of which helps keep military balance, fragile stability
and a very bad peace, but still peace, in the South Caucasus. If in
Brussels, Washington, Moscow, and Paris they have decided to give up
the Agreement in favor of militarization, threat of war and threat
to the peace in the region, let them declare this openly.

"The Noyan Tapan Highlights" N28, July, 2007