Azerbaijan Amassing Arms for Possible Karabakh War, Aliyev Says
Azerbaijan is buying up modern weaponry to be able to regain control of the breakaway Nagorno- Karabakh region quickly and with few losses should peace talks with neighboring Armenia fail, President Ilham Aliyev said.
Defense spending will rise 1.8 percent this year to $3.47 billion, which Aliyev said tops Armenia’s entire state budget.
“It’s not a frozen conflict, and it’s not going to be one,” Aliyev said today in remarks broadcast on state television channel AzTV.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan fought a war with Armenia over Nagorno- Karabakh, a majority Armenian-populated enclave that broke free from Baku’s control following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. The territory remains a potential flash point in a region where Russia fought a five-day war with Georgia in 2008 after separatist tensions flared up over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Zulfugar Agayev in Baku at zagayev@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Hellmuth Tromm at htromm@bloomberg.net
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