Baku Wants Armenia to Withdraw its Forces From the Area.

 

March 01, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - Azerbaijani officials have once again threatened to launch a military offensive to liberate the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabagh located between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan yesterday warned that the threat of a great war was looming if Armenian forces do not withdraw from the region. 

The enclave located inside Azerbaijan has mostly Armenians living in the area. In 1991 ethnic Armenians with support from Yerevan clashed with Azerbaijan in a war that took the lives of an estimated 30,000 people before a ceasefire in 1994. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia claim the region as part of their own territory. 

Yesterday, an Azeri Defense Ministry statement read, ‘Diplomats could not achieve concrete results for 15 years, and Azerbaijan cannot wait another 15 years. Now it is up to the military, and this danger is gradually approaching. If the Armenian occupier does not liberate our lands, the start of a great war in the South Caucasus is inevitable.’
 

Azerbaijan a country that possesses large hydrocarbon reserves from Caspian basin plans to join the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline, but tensions with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh have caused delays in the project. Azerbaijan’s strategic ally Turkey also wants Yerevan to pull its forces from the region before opening the border with Armenia. The presence of US and NATO forces in the neighbouring Georgia also adds fuel to the fire.