Elmar Mammadyarov: "Azerbaijan builds new radar stations to improve border control"

Responding to a question from Itar-Tass why the United States is building new radars in Azerbaijan, the minister said, "They are not building anything. We are building. These are our radar stations. It must be some misunderstanding."

"These radar stations are part of our border protection programme,” he said after delivering a speech at Washington's Heritage Foundation on Friday.

He said the need to strengthen border control had arisen after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. "We are an independent state now and we must do it ourselves and, among other things, protect our sector of the Caspian Sea. In this context we cooperate with the United States," he said.

He confirmed that Baku receives specialised equipment from Washington as part of this cooperation. But he stressed that all of it will be "the property of Azerbaijan".

The minister said the construction of the new radar stations is not directly related to the security of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. "We do cooperate on the security of the pipeline, and there are several programmes to this end, but we do it as part of the struggle against terrorism, just as we protect oil platforms because most of oil supplies come from sea fields. The experience we can get is interesting, and they [Americans] share it with us," Mammadyarov said.

Speaking of military cooperation with the U.S., he described it as "very good, in principle".

Cooperation in this field "allows us to modernise our army to meet the imperatives of time and respond to risks and challenges in the region," he said.

"In this context we cooperate with the United States quite actively," the minister said.