
Aliyev Rejects Rumors of Future Turkish Military Base in Azerbaijan
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, during a December 17 interview with the Russian government owned Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today) news outlet, refuted rumors that Turkey plans to establish a military base in Azerbaijan, describing such talk as “political speculation”.
Aliyev said there’s no need for a Turkish base in Azerbaijan since the two countries are obliged, by treaty, to come to the other’s aid in the event of an external threat or aggression.
He confessed that Turkey, over the past thirty years, has played a major role in modernizing the Azerbaijani military.
Regarding ongoing talks to finalize a peace deal with Armenia, Aliyev said fifteen of the seventeen articles of the treaty have been agreed to.
“The article on refraining from mutual [territorial] claims, as well as the article on not deploying foreign forces on our border, have not been agreed,” he noted, adding that “under the guise of foreign observers, Yerevan has deployed NATO infrastructure on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.”
Aliyev reiterated his demand that Armenia must remove sections of the Armenian constitution that Baku views as problematic and a main prerequisite for peace. Baku has long claimed that a preamble to Armenia’s Constitution indirectly refers to a 1989 declaration on Artsakh’s reunification with the Republic of Armenia and calls for the international recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
The Azerbaijani leader said his government will continue to purchase Russian arms even though no such purchases have been made for the past three years. He said Moscow is using domestically manufactured weaponry for internal use, read the war in Ukraine.
Aliyev said France is supplying “offensive weapons” to Armenia, thus posing a “real threat” to Azerbaijan. Armenia and France have described the military aid as “defensive” in nature.
Aliyev said his government has reached out to the U.S. on the matter, calling for an end of French military support to Armenia.
“Considering the fact that our border with Armenia is more than 1,000 kilometers long, many communities are near the border, and former refugees are returning to these places. We cannot simply be bystanders to this process. And we have repeatedly conveyed our point of view to Armenia and its sponsors in the U.S. State Department that this should be stopped. Unfortunately, they do not listen to us. The process of arming Armenia is proceeding in seven-mile steps,” Aliyev emphasized, adding that Armenia cannot compete in an arms race with Azerbaijan.
He said Baku expects Russian private sector investment in the reconstruction of Nagorno Karabakh.
Photo: Azerbaijan Presidential Press Service
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