Azerbaijan, Baku, June 18 / Trend M.Aliyev /
Amendments to the Azerbaijani 2010 state budget envisage allocating an additional 300 million manat to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, MP Aydin Mirzazade told journalists. The funds will be used to purchase new weapons.
"First of all, the additional funds will solve financial problems. The funds will also be directed toward improving our infrastructure and purchasing new weapons," Mirzazade said.
Parliament adopted amendments to the 2010 state budgets with 98 MPs voting "for" and five MPs voting "against" the initiative. Under the amendments, the budget deficit was reduced from 1,249 billion to 770.3 million manat. Thus, the state budget deficit decreased from 3.9 percent to 2.3 percent of the GDP. Budget revenues were increased by 49 billion manat to 11.505 billion.
Mirzazade stressed that Azerbaijan is still a country at war regardless of whether negotiations are being held to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
"Armenia should know that Azerbaijan is keeping all the options on the table to resolve this issue," he said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the United States - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the occupied territories.
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