BEEFING UP MILITARY MIGHT IS AZERBAIJAN’S SOVEREIGN RIGHT – DEFENSE MINISTRY
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
April 19, 2006 Wednesday
Azerbaijan’s increasing defense expenditures up to $1 billion is its
sovereign right, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s press-service said.
This statement was made in connection with the interview of Armenian
Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian with the Russian Krasnaya Zvezda
newspaper, in which he describes Baku’s intention to beef up its
defense budget to $1 billion as blackmail.
“Azerbajani President Ilkham Aliyev ordered the defense budget to
be increased up to the level of the Armenian state budget. Part of
the Azerbaijani territory is occupied, and given this fact, the task
specified by the president is Azerbaijan’s sovereign right,” the press-
service told Interfax.
“Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan complies with the Treaty on the
Conventional Forces in Europe. Armenia illegally deploys its weapons
on occupied Azerbaijani soil,” the press-service said.
It expressed its hope that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict would be
settled by peaceful means.
“At the same time President Ilkham Aliyev has repeatedly said that if
there is no hope for a peaceful solution to the problem, Azerbaijan
will resort to other measures to restore its territorial integrity,”
a press service official emphasized.