AZERBAIJAN THREATENS A GREAT WAR OVER NAGORNO-KARABAKH

Hamsayeh.net
http://www.hamsayeh .net/hamsayehnet_iran-international%20news968.htm
March 1 2010
Iran

Baku Wants Armenia to Withdraw its Forces From the Area.

March 01, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) – Azerbaijani officials have once again
threatened to launch a military offensive to liberate the breakaway
region of Nagorno-Karabagh located between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan yesterday warned that the threat of a great war was looming
if Armenian forces do not withdraw from the region.

The enclave located inside Azerbaijan has mostly Armenians living in
the area. In 1991 ethnic Armenians with support from Yerevan clashed
with Azerbaijan in a war that took the lives of an estimated 30,000
people before a ceasefire in 1994. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia claim
the region as part of their own territory.

Yesterday, an Azeri Defense Ministry statement read, ‘Diplomats could
not achieve concrete results for 15 years, and Azerbaijan cannot wait
another 15 years. Now it is up to the military, and this danger is
gradually approaching. If the Armenian occupier does not liberate our
lands, the start of a great war in the South Caucasus is inevitable.’

Azerbaijan a country that possesses large hydrocarbon reserves from
Caspian basin plans to join the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline, but
tensions with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh have caused delays in
the project. Azerbaijan’s strategic ally Turkey also wants Yerevan
to pull its forces from the region before opening the border with
Armenia. The presence of US and NATO forces in the neighbouring
Georgia also adds fuel to the fire.