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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:14 am Post subject: Azerbaijan 'ready' to liberate Nagorno-Karabakh |
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Ethnic conflicts seem all the rage lately.
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BAKU � Azerbaijan's president said on Tuesday his country was ready to take back breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh by force if need be and was buying military equipment and arms in preparation.
President Ilham Aliyev linked his comments to the newly-declared independence in Kosovo which he said had emboldened ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan's parliament later voted to withdraw a 33-strong Azeri peacekeeping team that has been serving in Kosovo under NATO command since 1999.
Former Soviet Azerbaijan has been trying to restore control over Nagorno-Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists threw off Azeri rule in the 1990s in a war that killed about 35,000 people.
"We have been buying military machinery, airplanes and ammunition to be ready to liberate the occupied territories, and we are ready to do this," Mr. Aliyev was quoted as saying.
He added the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with neighbouring Armenia could be resolved only on the principle of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.
The fragile peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia has held thanks to a ceasefire announced in May 1994 when large-scale hostilities ended.
But as Mr. Aliyev spoke, local television channels reported that two Azeri soldiers died in an exchange of fire near Nagorno-Karabakh's border earlier on Tuesday. Armenia's defence ministry confirmed the deaths and accused the Azeri side of violating the ceasefire.
After mainly ethnic Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia last month, Nagorno-Karabakh said this would help its own drive for international recognition.
The United States, major European Union powers and Azerbaijan's close ally Turkey have all backed Kosovo's independence, but Baku views it as illegal.
"You see how norms of international law are violated in the world," Mr. Aliyev was quoted as saying.
"And this has a negative impact on the settlement of the (Nagorno-Karabakh) conflict. The force factor remains decisive, and we will achieve this (Nagorno-Karabakh's reintegration)."
An Azeri official acknowledged that the pull-out of peacekeepers had clear political overtones due "to the changed political situation" after Kosovo's independence. |
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
I doubt we can count on the new Russian dude to push Azerbaijan towards negotiation.
Between this, Thailand, the risk of a flareup in Congo, uncle Hugo, the Iraqi religious civil war, Kosovo, Sudan, Somalia and what could become the Next Big Thing (the XingJang separatist movement) and the rest it seems the next decade could be very bloody. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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Ethnic conflicts seem all the rage lately.
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What's with the 'lately'? When hasn't ethnic conflict been popular? |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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Ethnic conflicts seem all the rage lately.
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What's with the 'lately'? When hasn't ethnic conflict been popular, particularly with the less educated? For that matter, can't your anti-Islamic tirades be classified as 'ethnic' conflicts? |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Good. I hope Azerbaijan wins this time. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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| What's with the 'lately'? When hasn't ethnic conflict been popular, particularly with the less educated? |
In the past months to a year, all over the world, many previously dormant conflicts have flared up.
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| For that matter, can't your anti-Islamic tirades be classified as 'ethnic' conflicts? |
No, they can't. The various acts of organized violence against non-muslims all over the world is a religious conflict, and violence against non-Arabs in the "Arab world" is an ethnic conflict. Refusing to drink the pc kool-aide and not talk about the most regressive force on earth is not.
The ethnic cleansing in southern Thailand is an ethnic conflict. Me pointing out that it is muslims doing the cleansing is not. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| Good. I hope Azerbaijan wins this time. |
Why do you hope Azerbaijan wins this time? I am not sure what to make of it all, but I do know ethnically the Armenians were there long before the Turkic elements, and Nagorno Karabakh is mostly populated by Armenians. However, I am not an expert on the matter, and I am not really for either side. I don't want another war to erupt. |
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