Azerbaijani army's exercises frighten Armenia
By Rashid Shirinov
The Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched large-scale exercises involving various types of troops and weapons on July 2, and this news became another cause for concern in Armenia.
The message by Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry reads that the exercises involve up to 20,000 military personnel, about 120 tanks and other armored vehicles, more than 200 rocket and artillery mounts of different caliber, multiple launch rocket systems and mortars, roughly 30 units of army and front-line aviation.
As might be expected, Armenian officials, being unable to hide their fear, began accusing Azerbaijan of an alleged violation of some international documents, failure to notify about the military exercises and other fictional evils. Even before the exercises started, Edmon Marukyan, member of the Armenian delegation to PACE, made another absurd statement: “It is necessary to take effective measures to prevent the military adventure of Azerbaijan, which will be a humanitarian disaster not only for Armenia, but also for the entire South Caucasus.”
However, Azerbaijan is not obliged to notify anyone about its military exercises, since they are conducted within the internationally recognized borders of the country. In contrast, it is Armenia who has repeatedly carried out military exercises in the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, thus showing its disrespect to the norms and principles of international law.
Armenia itself has long ago caused the “humanitarian disaster” to the region by triggering the Nagorno-Karabakh war and occupying 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory. This first hurt more than a million of Azerbaijanis, who became refugees and IDPs due to the war; and then, the Armenians themselves, those who lived in Nagorno-Karabakh, became the victims of the Armenian occupier authorities’ actions. Those people had lived in the once flourishing region of Azerbaijan, but now they have to reside in the former battlefield with buildings and infrastructure destroyed during the Armenian invasion. Moreover, Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan has also many times worsened the economy of Armenia and the well-being of its population.
After Marukyan, a representative of the separatist regime in Nagorno-Karabakh David Babayan also made a ridiculous statement, saying “Azerbaijan is close to the red line” and “we are stronger.” Marukyan must heed the words of his compatriot Karen Vardanyan, Chairman of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises, who clearly admits that Azerbaijan has an obvious advantage over Armenia in the military industrial sphere.
“The generals always fight according to the logic of the past war: Azerbaijan uses the most modern unmanned systems against us, and now Azerbaijan has more developed weapons created by the latest technologies, while Armenian generals are fighting with the weapons of the April war in 2016,” he has told Armenian media.
Moreover, reports of international military survey centers, such as of the Global Firepower, confirm that the Azerbaijani army is several times superior to the army of Armenia both in terms of the number of personnel and weapons, and their quality.
Presently, the Armenian media disseminate reports about the “high patriotic spirit” of Armenian servicemen who are “ready to avert the Azerbaijani threat.” Obviously, this is another propaganda ploy by Armenia. Azerbaijan has repeatedly noted that it is not going to fight with Armenia – it only intends to drive out the occupation forces of the aggressor country that are illegally located in the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan. No country or international structure can prohibit Baku from doing this, since no international document prohibits countries from restoring their territorial integrity by military means if other possibilities are exhausted. Therefore, the Armenian authorities must stop playing for time and hurry to seriously join the negotiating table with Azerbaijan to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by peaceful means.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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