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Thursday, October 25, 2007, #204 (1471)
On October 22, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced that his country’s defense budget in 2008 will be USD 1.3 billion, according to the news agency Regnum. In 2007, the defense budget was about USD 1 billion. The president suggested that Azerbaijan needed to strengthen its military capability as “occupying forces” are behaving “incorrectly” during negotiations, presumably a reference to Armenia. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war in the early 90s over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh; the region is now de facto independent but supported by Yerevan. “No one can prevent us from doing this,” the president added. “This is our sovereign right.” |
Azerbaijan spending USD 1.3 billion on defense next year