{"id":1031,"date":"2014-11-19T14:37:08","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T14:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2014-11-19T14:37:08","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T14:37:08","slug":"azeris-to-boost-defense-spending-amid-risk-of-armenia-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1031","title":{"rendered":"Azeris to Boost Defense Spending Amid Risk of Armenia War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By ZULFUGAR AGAYEV<br \/>\n<em>Bloomberg<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Azerbaijan, the third-largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union, will look past falling crude prices and increase military spending by more than a quarter next year as tensions escalate with neighboring Armenia.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1032\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1032\" style=\"width: 329px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin-info.hhd.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Covcas-azeri-military-parade.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1032\" src=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin-info.hhd.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Covcas-azeri-military-parade.jpg\" alt=\"An Azeri military parade in Baku, in 2012.\" width=\"329\" height=\"208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Covcas-azeri-military-parade.jpg 800w, https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Covcas-azeri-military-parade-300x189.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 329px) 100vw, 329px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1032\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An Azeri military parade in Baku, in 2012.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Defense outlays will grow 27 percent to 3.8 billion manat ($4.8 billion), exceeding Armenia\u2019s total budget spending of $3.2 billion, Finance Minister Samir Sharifov said today.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cAzerbaijan\u2019s armed forces need better equipment as Armenia continues its occupation policy in defiance of international law,\u201d Sharifov said today, according to state news service Azartac.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Armenia took over Azerbaijan\u2019s predominantly ethnic Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts in a war after the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 30,000 people were killed and 1.2 million displaced before Russia brokered a cease-fire in 1994.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Tensions escalated last week when Azerbaijan shot down what it said was an Armenian military helicopter east of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing three crew members. It was the first time an aircraft was downed in the conflict zone in the past 20 years. Armenia vowed to retaliate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">More than 20 people were killed on both sides in August when skirmishes along the heavily militarized cease-fire line turned the deadliest since 1994.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Azerbaijan, buoyed by more than $50 billion of investments by BP Plc (BP\/) and partners in its energy projects, has promised to use military force to regain control of the territory if peace talks mediated by France, Russia and the U.S. fail.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Azerbaijan plans to spend $3.8 billion on its army this year, up from $3.6 billion in 2013 and $3 billion in 2012.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has met his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan twice in the past three months, the two leaders failed to narrow their differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>By ZULFUGAR AGAYEV Bloomberg Azerbaijan, the third-largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union, will look past falling crude prices and increase military spending by <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1031\" title=\"Azeris to Boost Defense Spending Amid Risk of Armenia War\">[more &gt;&gt;&gt;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1032,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflicts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1033,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/1033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}