AZERBAIJAN MAY USE FORCE IN KARABAKH AFTER KOSOVO
By Lada Yevgrashina
Reuters
March 4 2008
UK
BAKU, March 4 (Reuters) – Azerbaijan’s president said on Tuesday his
country was ready to take back breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh by force
if need be and was buying military equipment and arms in preparation.
President Ilham Aliyev linked his comments to the newly-declared
independence in Kosovo which he said had emboldened ethnic Armenian
separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In a sign of disapproval of Kosovo’s independence Azerbaijan’s
parliament later voted to withdraw a 33-strong Azeri peacekeeping
team that has been serving there under NATO command since 1999.
Former Soviet Azerbaijan has been trying to restore control over
Nagorno-Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists threw off Azeri
rule in the 1990s in a war that killed about 35,000 people.
"We have been buying military machinery, airplanes and ammunition to
be ready to liberate the occupied territories, and we are ready to
do this," Turan quoted Aliyev as saying.
He added the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with neighbouring Armenia
could be resolved only on the principle of Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity.
The fragile peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia has held thanks to
a ceasefire announced in May 1994 whan large-scale hostilities ended.
But as Aliyev spoke, local television channels reported that two
Azeri soldiers died in an exchange of fire near Nagorno-Karabakh’s
border earlier on Tuesday.
Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan, who will become the next
president after winning a Feb. 19 election, blamed Azeri soldiers for
attacking Armenian forces but said he hoped for a peaceful solution
to the stand-off.
"I’m full of hope that normal and civilised logic will prevail in
the end," he told reporters in the Armenian capital.
"The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be solved by peaceful means and
I rule out a military solution to this conflict."
"ILLEGAL" PRECEDENT
After mainly ethnic Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia
last month, Nagorno-Karabakh said this would help its own drive for
international recognition.
The United States, major European Union powers and Azerbaijan’s close
ally Turkey have all backed Kosovo’s independence, but Baku views it
as illegal.
"You see how norms of international law are violated in the world,"
Aliyev was quoted as saying.
"And this has a negative impact on the settlement of the
(Nagorno-Karabakh) conflict. The force factor remains decisive,
and we will achieve this (Nagorno-Karabakh’s reintegration)."
An Azeri official acknowledged that the pull-out of peacekeepers had
clear political overtones due "to the changed political situation"
after Kosovo’s independence.
Azerbaijan’s economy, propelled by windfall revenues from booming
Caspian Sea oil exports, has shown double-digit growth, and Aliyev
said the nation’s $1.3 billion military budget was set to expand
further in the years to come.
Aliyev said he believed Azerbaijan’s growing military could nudge
talks towards a diplomatic breakthrough. "A time will come when the
Armenians will agree to that (settlement)," he said.