AZERBAIJAN BOOSTS DEFENCE BUDGET, WARNS ARMENIA

Reuters, UK
Oct 22 2007

BAKU, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Azerbaijan will increase its defence
spending by nearly one third next year to build up its strength in a
long-running territorial dispute with its Caucasus neighbour Armenia,
President Ilham Aliyev said on Monday.

He told a government meeting that the military budget will grow by
$300 million to $1.3 billion in 2008.

"The country will allocate funds to buy new hardware, weapons and
ammunition, to create a powerful military-industrial complex and
improve the professionalism of the military," Aliyev said. "We are
creating a powerful army."

The message of the 45-year-old president was primarily targeted
at Armenia, the main backer of Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The insincere behaviour of Armenian occupation forces, dragging out
the negotiation process, forces us to devote greater attention to
military issues," Aliyev said. "Azerbaijan must be ready to liberate
its lands by any means."

Predominantly Armenian Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan around
the time the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991. Tens of thousands
of people died in a war before a shaky truce was reached in 1994.

International attempts to negotiate a solution to Karabakh, which says
it will accept nothing less than full independence, have led nowhere.

The loss of Karabakh and a large swathe of territory around it has
become a major humiliation for oil-rich Azerbaijan, whose economy
has been one of the world’s fastest-growing in the past few years.