PRESIDENT: AZERBAIJAN WILL INCREASE MILITARY SPENDING TO $2 BILLION

Associated Press
April 15 2008

Azerbaijan’s president announced plans Tuesday for another enormous
increase in the country’s military budget as tension continued with
neighboring Armenia over a long-standing territorial dispute.

Azerbaijani defense spending could reach almost $2US billion
(euro1.3 billion) this year, up from $1.3 billion (euro820 million),
Azerbaijan’s state news agency quoted Ilham Aliev as saying.

"The increase of military spending should not be analyzed out of
context. We must not forget that we are in a state of war," Aliev said,
according to the news agency.

The planned increase is in line with the growth of the state budget,
Aliev said.

"Certain international organizations criticize us for building up
our military capabilities. What they don’t understand is that, over
the last four years, the state budget has risen tenfold," he said.

Exports from the country’s vast Caspian Sea oil and gas reserves
have helped lift Azerbaijan’s economy since the Soviet collapse,
and propelled an aggressive upgrade of its armed forces.

Tensions remain high between Azerbaijan and Armenia, two South Caucasus
nations that participated in a six-year conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,
a region that is inside Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic
Armenian forces since a 1994 cease-fire. Some 30,000 people were
killed and more than 1 million driven from their homes.

International mediators have repeatedly sought to get the two
countries to resolve the dispute, which has held up development in
the strategic region.