[Armenian News note: The below is translated from Azeri]
The defence minister in Baku has praised his country's army and said it is capable of defeating Azerbaijan's archfoe Armenia.
Zakir Hasanov made the remarks in an interview with the "Pulse of the day" ("Gunun nabzi") programme on state-owned AzTV television channel. The interview, which appears to have been pre-recorded, aired on 3 April.
Throughout the interview, which lasted 42 minutes, Hasanov praised the military, political, and economic policies of and reforms by Ilham Aliyev, the president of the country and commander-in-chief of Azerbaijan's Armed Forces.
Azerbaijan vs Armenia
Asked to comment on the phrase "new war in exchange for new territories", uttered by Armenia's defence minister regarding the Karabakh territorial conflict between the two countries, Hasanov said the remark was only meant for domestic consumption in Armenia. He said Armenia was "not in a position to attack" Azerbaijan because its economy and army were not good enough. He added that Azerbaijan would defeat Armenia if the latter attacked it.
Hasanov commented on the April 2016 fighting, in which Azerbaijan reclaimed some of its land held by ethnic Armenian troops. He said Azerbaijan's economy and therefore its army got stronger "by the day" and that the president's army reforms resulted in a "crushing blow" dealt to the Armenians. He said the results for the Armenians were "catastrophic" as "20 per cent of the Azerbaijani army" defeated the Armenian army within three or four days. He also praised the patriotism that he said Azerbaijani army officers and civilians demonstrated during the April fighting.
Army is taken care of
Hasanov said the president took care of the army, and rejected accusations that conditions in which army soldiers lived were bad. He said Azerbaijan completely met the demand of the army with weapons and that it was prepared to start fighting at any moment. He said more than 1,000 different kinds of weapons and munitions were produced in Azerbaijan.
Hasanov said personnel policy was one of the priorities in the army reform which he said covered soldiers' trainings at different training centres, military schools, their education abroad and exchange of expertise. He said Azerbaijan learnt from the combat experience of foreign countries that conducted military operations, such as Turkey, and that Azerbaijani military specialists studied in military schools in more than 10 "leading countries". "Most of our personnel-related issues have been resolved now," he said.
He praised the fact that there was "strong public monitoring of the army". He said "wonderful cantonments" had been built for soldiers, and that 90 per cent of military bases would be rebuilt by the end of the year and 100 per cent in the next couple of years. He said the cabinet, the president and different monitoring organisations monitored the spending of "the big amount of money" allocated to the army. "Today, the Azerbaijani state, the Azerbaijani people have created [good] conditions for their army that… probably the world's leading states do not have," he said, adding that he could say so based on what he had seen in other CIS counties and NATO countries. He also cited unnamed "military attaches of leading countries" as telling him that their countries did not have military bases like those in Azerbaijan. "The conditions created for Azerbaijani soldiers are at a high level," he said, adding that very few other states provided free flats to officers with a perfect army service record. He said more than 1,000 soldiers had received free flats from the state since 1992 and that this was one of the priorities in the president's army reform. "The Azerbaijani army's fighting efficiency being high today is a result of the reforms in the Azerbaijan army," he said.
International involvement
Hasanov also spoke about Azerbaijan's international military exercises. He said there were plans to conduct joint drills with "fraternal Turkey" and "fraternal Pakistan". He praised the performance of Azerbaijan's Air Defence in a recent exercise in which it was "attacked" by Turkey's Air Force.
He said there were "bilateral and trilateral plans" to protect Azerbaijan's energy pipelines that ran through Georgia. He added that Baku used Nato's experience to improve its army and that Azerbaijan participated in different Nato programmes that he said contributed to his country's army's combat readiness.
Hasanov added that Azerbaijan was a peace-loving country and its combat readiness was high. He said because the Azerbaijani army was so strong the UN had asked Baku to provide more military officers for international peacekeeping operations. "Azerbaijan is on the right path and we will make a contribution to peace in the future as well," Hasanov concluded.