Azeri authorities resume military rhetoric after Kazan meeting on Karabakh

June 26, 2011 - 17:03 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azeri authorities have resumed military rhetoric merely two days after Kazan-hosted Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan presidential meeting on Karabakh.

“Azerbaijan must be strong in order to restore its territorial integrity,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.

“I am absolutely sure that our territorial integrity will be restored in any way. To this end we must be even stronger," he said in Baku before the beginning of a military parade of the Day of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan.

He stressed that Azerbaijan will continue building up its military might. “While in 2003 our military expenditures amounted to $160million, in 2010 - to $2.15 billion, this year the figure has reached $3.3 billion,” he said adding that today Azerbaijan's military expenditures exceed Armenia's entire national budget by 50%.

Aliyev said that military speeding will continue to remain the top priority in the national budget until Armenia signs a peace agreement.

The June 24 meeting between Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia completed without an agreement on basic principles of Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. The parties stated the progress on the way to this goal, the statement on the Kazan summit results runs. “The countries’ leaders registered mutual understanding on a range of problems, the resolution of which boosts creation of conditions for approving main principles,” according to the statement. It is also said in the document that the meeting participants considered the course of works carried out with the aim of coordination of the project with basic principles.

There were certain expectations with respect to the meeting, taking into consideration the Deauville statement adopted by the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries, who said “the time has arrived for all the sides to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict to take a decisive step towards a peaceful settlement. Further delay [in the settlement] would only call into question the commitment of the sides to reach an agreement.”