AZERI-RUSSIAN ARMS TRADE $4 BILLION AMID TENSION WITH ARMENIA

Bloomberg / Business Week
Aug 13 2013

By Zulfugar Agayev

Azerbaijan said its arms trade with Russia is worth $4 billion as
the Caspian Sea nation boosted military spending in connection with
its territorial dispute with neighboring Armenia.

“As of today, military and technical cooperation with Russia is
measured at $4 billion and it tends to grow further,” President Ilham
Aliyev said today after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin
in Baku, the Azeri capital. It was the first time Azerbaijan disclosed
the price of its arms deals.

Armenia seized Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked mountainous enclave
about the size of Rhode Island with a population of more than 140,000,
and seven adjacent districts from Azerbaijan in a conflict after the
Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 that killed more than 30,000 people
and displaced more than 1 million. While large-scale hostilities
ended with a cease-fire in May 1994, the sides have yet to sign
a peace agreement despite years of talks mediated by Russia, the
U.S. and France. Clashes are common along the heavily militarized
cease-fire line with four Azeris killed in the first quarter alone,
according to a count by the private APA news service.

Azerbaijan has increased military spending by almost 30 times to $3.7
billion in the past decade and repeatedly threatened to use force to
regain control of the territory if peace talks fail. A failure of talks
would risk renewed war in a region where BP Plc (BP/) and partners
have invested more than $35 billion in energy projects since 1994.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress