| The President of Azerbaijan addresses the brotherly people Heydar Aliyev is seriously considering the possibility of restoring the integrity of the state by military means and returning 20% of the country's territory occupied by Armenian armed forces. This is the essence of most of the comments that appeared on the feeds of world agencies after the Tuesday speech of the President of Azerbaijan at a meeting of the Turkish National Assembly. Mr. Aliyev expressed complaints against the United States and other Western countries, which have reduced peacekeeping efforts in the OSCE and the Minsk Group to “flirting with the aggressor and indulging his whims.” The West is alarmed: if the missile launchers rattle, then 20 oil contracts worth a total of $60 billion and the work that has begun on oil production and the development of large oil fields on the Azerbaijani Caspian shelf can be put to rest.
From now on, the Azerbaijani leader pins his hopes on brotherly Ankara. When conducting a military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, if necessary, Baku is counting on Turkey’s military resources, the Turkish Daily News newspaper claims. Another newspaper, Hurriyet, writes that the presidents agreed to “conclude a military alliance between the two states” and the active assistance of the Turkish General Staff in “strengthening the power of the Azerbaijani army.” Officials in Ankara report that the agreement will be signed in Baku during the upcoming return visit of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
The president's statements about the possibility of a military solution to the Karabakh problem meet with the approval of the Azerbaijani military. According to the official version, the national army of Azerbaijan is sufficiently prepared to “fulfill its historical mission.” The community of retired officers - veterans of the Karabakh war, who presented the concept of a military solution to the head of state and expressed their readiness to serve their homeland, is also confident in this. True, the independent Baku newspaper Azadlig notes in this regard that the conduct of hostilities will require restructuring the work of the military-industrial complex, establishing logistics support and a system of pre-conscription training for youth. Perhaps Ankara will help with all this.
The Turkish military, of course, is always ready to help their Azerbaijani brothers, but in fact they themselves are now going through difficult times. The economic crisis has dealt a severe blow to military leaders' plans to spend tens of billions of dollars to rearm NATO's second-largest army. A 30% devaluation of the Turkish lira will not allow the treasury to satisfy the large-scale appetites of the army. During a dinner in honor of President Aliyev, Chief of the General Staff Husein Kivrikoglu told reporters that "after four weeks of economic devastation, the Turkish military may abandon plans to buy weapons."
Although Turkey has been living under the IMF’s anti-crisis plan for three whole years, the West has never once reminded Ankara that multibillion-dollar spending on weapons does not help the fight against inflation. Meanwhile, the military has already allocated $11.2 billion from the state treasury for the purchase of 145 attack helicopters from the American company Bell-Textron and 1,000 tanks. In November, amid a worsening economic crisis, negotiations began with Boeing on the purchase of 6 AWACS reconnaissance aircraft. Now Kivrikoglu admitted that “some of the projects may be revised.” However, refusal to purchase military equipment will deal a blow not only to the ambitions of the Turkish military, but also to their close ties with the American military-industrial complex. Balancing between the interests of the army and the national economy, Ankara prefers the path of delaying contracts - they say, we will buy everything, but later, when budget restrictions are not so severe. Arif USEYNOV, Baku |
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