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Tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia over armament

By Messenger Staff
Tuesday, November 16
Armenia has expressed its concern over the high level move by Azerbaijan to increase its military equipment as well the level of its military budget. There are continuous discussions over whether the Azeri leadership will begin military action, however Armenian analysts consider that since development in Azerbaijan is funded by its oil and gas exports it would not risk starting military actions. Armenian analyst Sergey Minasian is promoting a so called refraining theory according to which Armenia, together with its strategic partner Russia forces Azerbaijan to refrain from solving the Karabakh conflict militarily. The essence of this theory is that providing arms to Armenia and continuing this action forces Azerbaijan to refrain from hostilities. Azeri analysts think that in receiving arms from Russia Armenia was forced to concede all its economy, industry and infrastructure almost free of charge to Russian companies.