INTERNATIONAL EXPERT THINKS NEW WAR MAY START IN KARABAKH IN 2012
arminfo
2008-02-04 14:50:00
ArmInfo. Director of European programmes of International Crisis
Group Sabine Freizer says in one of her articles that the growing
military budget of Azerbaijan may become a fact of the war restart
in Nagornyy Karabakh.
When analyzing the fact that Azerbaijan is increasing its military
spending and President Ilham Aliyev’s promise to make Azerbaijani
military spending equal to Armenia’s entire state budget, Sabine
Freizer does not think restart of the war is possible soon. ‘True,
open war will not start tomorrow and it may be as far off as 2012, when
Azerbaijan’s oil revenues should peak, making the country’s leadership
see it as the optimum moment to recover the occupied areas’, – Freizer
said. The article presents data according to which boosted by oil
revenues, Azerbaijan increased its military spending by a record 51%
in 2004-05, and then raised it a further 82% in 2006. ‘But Armenia is
hardly a tortoise in this race. Though its military budget is only
about a quarter of its neighbour’s, it last year spent some $280
million on weapons – another record. Armenian officials boast they
do more with less because they can get better deals on armaments from
Russia’, – the expert thinks.