Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 10, 2007 Friday

DRAFT MILITARY DOCTRINE OF AZERBAIJAN;
… will be hopefully adopted in September

R. Orujev

MILITARY DOCTRINE OF AZERBAIJAN MAY BE ADOPTED THIS AUTUMN; The
parliament of Azerbaijan will discuss a draft military doctrine this
autumn.

Zakhid Oruj, member of the Commission for National Security and
Defense of the Milli Mejlis (parliament of Azerbaijan), told the APA
news agency a draft military doctrine was expected in the parliament
one of these days. The lawmaker expects the document to be adopted
this autumn. "Military doctrine will outline the priorities of
development of the Armed Forces and facilitate military reforms," he
said.

This newspaper approached Oruj for comment. "The news agency
misquoted me somewhat," the lawmaker said. "I said I have reasons to
believe the document is already in the Milli Mejlis. So far as I
know, work on it is over now, and the document was submitted to the
parliament. President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Ilham Aliyev,
signed the National Security Concept two months ago and pointed out
that the government had three months to come up with a draft military
doctrine. I do not doubt that the schedule of our autumn session will
include a discussion of the draft doctrine."

"The OSCE conference in Baku lasted two days. We spent them with
Oruj," independent military expert, Uzeir Jafarov, said. "I told him
I was concerned over delays with the military doctrine. The lawmaker
said he was stone-cold confident we will have our doctrine before the
year is over. What will the document be centered around? So far as I
know, it will outline the priorities of military activity of the
country in the nearest future. I also believe that Armenia will be
mentioned in the document as a country encroaching on the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan, and sisterly Turkey as a strategic military
partner. All in all, the document will be mostly composed of general
phrases on how security structures and state power structures should
go about ensuring the security of Azerbaijan and its territorial
integrity."

According to the expert, the document was actually drafted long ago.
"When I was with the Defense Ministry in 2003, my colleagues and I
participated in the work on the document," Jafarov said. "The
powers-that-be decided to have it discussed by the parliament only
now. If you ask me, the document bears a strong resemblance to the
military doctrine of the Russian Federation. Its authors did take a
great deal from the doctrines of Russia, Turkey, and the Ukraine."

"Foreign specialists from Turkey, United States, and Germany helped
us with the draft military doctrine. And so did NATO," Jashar
Jafarli, the head of the Union of Retired Officers, said.

Source: Ekho (Baku), August 4, 2007, EV

Translated by A. Ignatkin