Azernews.Az

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The Azerbaijani armed forces have accomplished their weeklong large-scale exercises on February 9.

As a result of the fruitful exercises, the level of the army's combat capabilities and professionalism of the staff were raised.

Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov, Defense Minister, hailed the army's active involvement in the scaly drills, at a meeting attended by the senior personnel of the Ministry and armed forces, commanders, chiefs of staffs and officers of military units, on February 9.

Addressing the meeting, Hasanov analyzed the shootings carried out in conditional combat circumstances to the maximum extent, praising the level of combat capabilities and professionalism of the staff.

He noted the significance of such exercises and gave the army's command staff appropriate instructions.

The Azerbaijani armed forces embarked on the large-scale operational and tactical exercises on February 2 involving 15,000 personnel, 300 armored vehicles, over 200 missiles and artillery troops and 20 aircrafts of the air forces, air defense units and sophisticated anti-aircraft missile complexes.

The top brass of the country has closely observed the massive drills under the instruction of Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

The armed forces have launched missiles, carried out bombing operations and opened fire on the conditional enemy. They also conducted operations at the prearranged territory as part of the major phase of large-scale military drills on February 4.

The primary objective of the drills was to raise the level of the army's combat readiness, its capability to fulfill the tasks set and interaction among all military units.

Azerbaijan, whose 20 percent of internationally recognized territory is under the Armenian occupation, boosts its fighting capacity in an effort to liberate its lands. It has sets this mission as a top priority in 2015.

Armenia ignores all international calls to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, historical and internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan. Armenia fought a lengthy war against Azerbaijan in early 1990s, claiming the lives of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijanis. Armenia keeps under control the one fifth of Azerbaijani territory, causing over a million Azerbaijanis to live as IDPs and refugees in their homeland.

The regular anti-Azerbaijan provocative operations on the contact line of the armies represent a threat to flare up the conflict. Peace talks mediated by international organizations aim to reach the soonest end to the conflict without repeating the fatal skirmishes. Azerbaijan is showing an exemplary tolerance to stay committed to the peaceful solution of the conflict despite Armenia's sabotage movements, but it doesn't exclude the armed settlement of the dispute.

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