Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan is not concerned over Armenia’s frequent military exercises, the Defense Ministry spokesman has said.

Eldar Sabiroghlu said Armenia is incapable of conducting drills that could perturb his country, which faces a long-standing conflict with Armenia. "Ample time and financial resources are required to hold large-scale military exercises."

Sabiroghlu said President Serzh Sargsyan’s presenting as large-scale exercises ordinary drills being conducted in Armenia and occupied Azerbaijani territories aims to divert public attention in Armenia from stand-off in the country’s armed forces and aggravating social conditions at home.

President Sargsyan, who attended the military exercises held in the occupied parts of Azerbaijan’s Aghdam region last week, claimed Azerbaijan will be dealt a "devastating" blow if it uses force to resolve the conflict over the occupied Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Sargsyan said the drills, which were maximally adapted to a combat situation, must be a response and a warning to Azerbaijan’s alleged threats.

"If push suddenly comes to shove, we will manage not just to repeat what happened in 1992-1994 but to finally resolve the conflict and the issue will be closed once and for all," he alleged, referring to the Armenian-Azerbaijani war in the early 1990s in which Armenian forces occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani regions.

Numerous rounds of OSCE-brokered negotiations have been largely fruitless so far. Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly warned that the country’s land will be freed at any cost.

The Azerbaijan Defense Ministry spokesman said that every time Armenia hears troubling statements from Baku, it employs all of the arms available and tries "to show that it is holding military exercises".

"If we count them, perhaps, more than ten such exercises have been held since the beginning of the year, involving only five or six tanks and sometimes a couple of salvos," Sabiroghlu noted. "And this does not aim to increase [the army’s] combat readiness at all. Their exercises now produce an impression of children's games."

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who visited the frontline Aghdam region last week, warned of a possible military solution to the Karabakh conflict. He said that unlike Armenia, the population, economic growth and military power are increasing in Azerbaijan.

"We have already created a professional and belligerent army, and have purchased large amounts of weaponry and ammunition," President Aliyev said. "Our military will say its piece at any moment.

"We don’t want war. But we will never reconcile with this situation either. Armenia knows and should know that our patience has limits, it is not inexhaustible."

Elkhan Shahinoglu, the head of Baku-based Atlas research center, says that the Armenian leader’s strongly-worded statement seeks to appease the Armenian public and encourage the separatist regime operating in the Nagorno Karabakh region.

Shahinoglu reminded that Azerbaijan has significantly increased its military budget in past years to the level exceeding Armenia’s overall budget, is developing its defense industry, producing weapons, which has raised concerns in Armenia.

The analyst noted that the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia instructed their foreign ministers during the Russian-brokered meeting last month to develop new proposals to revive peace talks. However, given the current bellicose rhetoric, it is hard to expect progress in the negotiating process at the upcoming presidential meeting in Astana.

But Shahinoglu said he does not expect a resumption of warfare in the coming years and that merely more frequent ceasefire violations and minor clashes are possible.

Several deadly clashes have taken place on the contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops in the past months and Armenia had long refused to repatriate the bodies of killed soldiers. On October 27, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia signed an agreement to swap prisoners of war and the bodies of soldiers after talks in Astrakhan held with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s mediation. The first such swap took place early in November.

President Medvedev voiced hope after the Astrakhan talks that the document on basic conflict settlement principles would be agreed by the OSCE summit due December 1-2 in Astana.

The Madrid Document covers "the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijani control" and a future determination of the legal status of Nagorno Karabakh "through a legally binding expression of will" and the right of "internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence."