BAKU — Azerbaijan has displayed a Turkish-made cruise missile in a military parade to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Azeri Armed Forces, Hurriet Daily News reports.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency on June 26 described the event as “a first in history” for the inclusion of SOM-B1, Turkey’s first indigenous long-range, autonomous, high-precision air-to-surface cruise missile designed and produced by Roketsan.
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev saluted the armed forces during the parade in Baku before focusing in his speech on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
“Karabakh is Azeri land. Azerbaijan will never accept the occupation. Our army has been equipped with the most modern arms and technologies. Only a fraction of our arms are on display here. Armenia can never compete with us,” Aliyev said in the ceremony.
“We are for the peaceful resolution of the [Nagorno-Karabakh] conflict but [Armenia] has to understand that there is no military or strategic object that the Azerbaijani Army is unable to destroy,” Aliyev said.
“The war is not over. Only its first phase has ended,” he said.
Aliyev stressed that Baku will continue to buy weapons abroad to strengthen its armed forces, saying that “the factor of military potential currently dominates in the world affairs.”
“International law does not work, because if it did, we [would have] liberated our occupied territories long ago,” he said. “The war is not over. Only its first phase has ended.”
