A top official from the Presidential Administration has said that Azerbaijan reserves the right to restore its territorial integrity "by any means".
Ali Hasanov, head of the public policy department at the Presidential Administration, was referring indirectly to the Nagorno-Karabakh Region of Azerbaijan and seven districts around it, occupied by Armenian forces.
Armenia made territorial claims on Nagorno-Karabakh in the late 1980s. The dispute turned into armed conflict, with Armenian troops occupying a swathe of Azerbaijani territory from 1992. Despite a ceasefire in 1994, no long-term peace agreement has been reached.
Interviewed by Azerbaijani website 1news.az, Ali Hasanov said that the restoration of territorial integrity was an internal affair of Azerbaijan.
He was asked to comment on President Ilham Aliyev's remarks at a government meeting last week that Azerbaijan would prefer a peaceful solution to the conflict but was building up its army and making the enemy "tremble in fear", and on reports in opposition newspapers that Azerbaijan was about to launch military actions.
"I do not think that this is the start of preparations for war," Hasanov said. "However, Azerbaijan is warning the whole international community and the forces that violated the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan that it reserves the right to liberate its lands and is increasing further its economic, political and military power in order to exercise this right. This is an internal affair of Azerbaijan and no one can interfere. We have the right to use any means to restore territorial integrity and we are preparing for this."
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