AZERBAIJAN RISKS NEW ARMENIA CONFLICT AS CHOPPER DOWNED
Bloomberg
Nov 12 2014
By Zulfugar Agayev and Sara Khojoyan Nov 12, 2014 9:21 PM GMT+0200
Azerbaijan shot down an Armenian helicopter that it said violated its
airspace in an attack that may trigger fresh confrontations between
the two countries over a disputed region.
The Mi-24 helicopter was “trying to attack” Azeri positions near a
cease-fire line when it was hit, the Defense Ministry in Baku said on
its website. Armenia’s Defense Ministry said the aircraft was unarmed
and called its downing an “unprecedented provocation.”
“This is the worst military incident in more than 20 years since
the cease-fire,” Thomas de Waal, senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, said by e-mail from Washington.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war as the Soviet Union collapsed
that claimed about 30,000 lives and displaced 1.2 million people. The
latest rupture of the 1994 cease-fire marks a potentially dangerous
turn in the Caucasus flashpoint located between Turkey, Iran and
Russia, which has a mutual defense pact with Armenia.
Armenians seized Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from
Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. Efforts by the Minsk Group of U.S.,
Russian and French mediators from the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe have failed to achieve a peace agreement and
end sporadic confrontations, which in August resulted in the death
of 20 troops.
First Downing
Today’s incident was the first time an aircraft was shot down in the
conflict zone around Nagorno-Karabakh since the cease-fire, according
to both sides.
“At 1:45 today, a Mi-25 helicopter of Armenian armed forces tried to
attack our positions,” the Azeri ministry said. “Our troops shot the
enemy helicopter down.”
The Minsk Group mediators said they were “deeply worried” by the
incident and appealed to all sides to avoid escalating tensions. “The
region cannot afford another round of violence like we witnessed
this summer,” Russian Ambassador Igor Popov, U.S. Ambassador James
Warlick and French Ambassador Pierre Andrieu said in an e-mailed
OSCE statement.
Companies led by London-based BP Plc (BP/) have invested more than
$40 billion in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas fields. Azerbaijan can pump
as much as 1.2 million barrels a day of oil to Turkey through the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which allows supplies to bypass Russia,
and at its closest point lies about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Military Spending
Azerbaijan has used oil revenue to raise military spending 30-fold in
the past decade and threatened to use force to regain control of the
territory should mediation fail. It says Nagorno-Karabakh must remain
part of Azerbaijan to maintain the principle of territorial integrity,
while Armenia says the region has a right to self-determination.
“Azeri accusations claiming that Armenian helicopters have carried out
attacks on their positions and got a proper response are mindless,”
said Artsrun Hovhannisyan, a ministry spokesman in Yerevan. “An
investigation of the helicopter’s debris will confirm that the
helicopter was not militarily equipped.”
Three crew died, Radio Liberty reported on its website, citing Davit
Babayan, spokesman for Nagorno-Karabakh President Bako Sahakyan.
Hovhannisyan said Azerbaijan was blocking attempts to reach the
helicopter. “This unprecedented provocation will be very painful for
Azerbaijan,” he said.
The Azeri ministry named the soldier it said had shot down the aircraft
as Ilkin Muradov, and said he had been decorated for “distinction
in military service.” The helicopter had crashed 500 meters from the
Azeri front line, it said.
War Games
The latest spark comes as Armenia and troops from the self-declared
state of Nagorno-Karabakh stage military drills in the area. Almost
50,000 troops are currently engaged in military exercises that began
on Nov. 6, their defense ministries said.
Armenia has 17,000 troops in the exercise, the Defense Ministry
in Yerevan said on its website, while the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense
Ministry said on its website that it had 30,000 soldiers involved. The
“Unity 2014” drills involve 850 armored vehicles, 2,100 artillery
pieces and 450 air defense units, the ministries said.
Azeri President Ilham Aliev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
have met twice in the past three months, in Sochi in August and in
Paris in October, in an attempt to overcome their differences.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-12/azerbaijan-says-armenian-helicopter-shot-down-in-conflict-zone.html