Army of Azerbaijan

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Azerbaijani troops.

The Azerbaijan Army is the military Land Force of Azerbaijan. It has about 110,000 personnel including 15,000 airborne troops.

1 Military budget
2 Strength
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Military budget

Since 1994, Azerbaijan has been increasing the size of its military budget, which rose to $660 million by 2006 and will increase to $1 billion by the end of 2006. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has, with much success, been developing its armed forces into a professional, well trained and mobile military.

[edit] Strength

Azerbaijan is also expanding its active forces, now numbering about 95,000, with an additional reserve of 575,000, as well as a "reserve of the reserve" of 1,314,955. The Azeri ground forces additionally have 15,000 airborne troops. Azerbaijan has contracted with Turkey for troop training to strengthen its armed forces. The Azerbaijan army has modernized by adopting a new organizational style as well. Over the last 14 years, Azerbaijan has been preparing its military for possible action against Armenian forces in the occupied region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Due to the failure of the last round of negotiations in France, it is feared that Azerbaijan may attempt to liberate its occupied territories in Karabakh by military force. However, Azerbaijan has constantly stated its interest in a peaceful diplomatic solution.

There are 250 Azerbaijani troops stationed in Iraq.

[edit] Main Battle Tanks

In the past 10-12 years Azerbaijan has purchased significant quantities of weapons and military equipment, specifically tanks, artillery systems and combat aircraft. The amount of arms purchased by Azerbaijan have reached such a point that Azerbaijan now has almost twice as many tanks, armored vehicles, artillery systems and other equipment as allowed it under the limits set by the updated 1999 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). According to expert evaluation, there are 500 tanks alone. ^[1].

In 1997 the Azerbaijan military had 274 Main battle tanks consisting of:

T-72 - 150
T-55 - 124

By 2003 the Azerbaijan military had acquired an additional 259 Main battle tanks consisting of:

T-72 - 136
T-55 - 123

Azerbaijani soldier during training.

[edit] Armored Combat Vehicles

The Azerbaijani army (1997) had 361 armored combat vehicles consisting out; BMP-1,BM-21 122-mm Grad Artillery Rocket Launcher, BMP-2, BMP-3 and MT-LB armored combat vehicles.

In 2003 the Azerbaijani army had 513 armored combat vehicles consisting of: