Assa-Irada,
18, April 2008

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Friday that the prospects for talks on the long-standing Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict with Armenia should be clarified in the coming months.

Addressing the public in the frontline Fuzuli district, Aliyev emphasized that peace talks conducted with Armenia in the past 14 years have been fruitless.

"Although some advances are sensed in the negotiating process, this does not mean that the issue has been solved," he said.

The president said Azerbaijan was conducting talks as it hoped for a fair and negotiated solution of the problem.

He expressed hope that international mediators brokering the peace process and Armenia "would realize that the policy of aggression has no future".

"We are trying to resolve the conflict in peace. But negotiations cannot go on forever. Every nation or country's patience has limits. For the time being, we are displaying our policy of [supporting] peace and taking part in talks. But both the other side and all international mediators should know that this will not always be the case," Aliyev warned. "Armenia also says that it aspires to settle the conflict in peace. But they did not occupy Azerbaijan's land by peaceful means. They did so with outside support and by military means," he said.

President Aliyev reiterated that Azerbaijan's position on the Garabagh conflict was known and intransigent.

The newly-appointed Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian claimed that Azerbaijan "should reconcile with having lost Garabagh" and that Yerevan would not back down from the principle of self-determination of nations in the course of peace talks.

President Aliyev visited the frontline on the same day. He said he has been paying such visits frequently of late and meeting with servicemen. "After meeting with our military men today, I was once again convinced that the Azerbaijani army is ready to carry out all tasks it is facing."

"The Azerbaijani army is the most powerful one in the region both in terms of professionalism and logistics potential," the commander-in-chief said.

Aliyev highlighted that Azerbaijan's military budget was rising. "Our military potential and defense spending that is increasing by the year draws us closer to the goal we have set out. These expenses have risen 10 times in the past four years."

Aliyev stressed that defense spending would be further increased soon during the introduction of addenda to the state budget, bringing the figure to about $2 billion.

During the visit to the contact line of the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the president also observed the enemy positions.

This was the Azerbaijani leader's second visit to the frontline regions in 2008.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a cease-fire in 1994, but Armenia continues to occupy Upper Garabagh and seven other Azerbaijani districts in defiance of international law. The OSCE-brokered peace talks have been fruitless so far.