Azerbaijan could buy 100 additional main battle tanks T-90 from Russia 2405142

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Defence & Security Industry News - Azerbaijan
 
 
Saturday, May 24, 2014 04:58 PM
 
Azerbaijan could buy 100 additional main battle tanks T-90 from Russia.
Azerbaijan could buy 100 more Russian T-90 main battle tanks after receiving $1 billion worth of this and other military hardware, Russia’s main government agency overseeing arms deals with foreign states said on Friday, May 23, 2014.
     
Azerbaijan could buy 100 more Russian main battle tanks T-90 after receiving $1 billion worth of this and other military hardware, Russia’s main government agency overseeing arms deals with foreign states said on Friday, May 23, 2014.
Russian-made main battle tank T-90 of Azerbaijan army at a military parade in Baku.
     
Konstantin Biryulin, the deputy head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, told the Itar-Tass news agency that Russian defense companies have all but completed the delivery of those offensive weapons, including around 100 T-90 tanks, which began last year.

“We finished the shipment of the entire batch — 100 tanks — about a month ago,” Biryulin said, citing Russian-Azerbaijani defense contracts signed in 2011.

The Russian official went on to reveal that the contracts give Azerbaijan an option to purchase another 100 T-90s. “But the second part has not been contracted yet,” he added.

The Russian arms deliveries to Azerbaijan caused a stir in Armenia after being disclosed by a Moscow newspaper a year ago. The outcry intensified after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in August that the total volume of defense contracts with the Russians is “measured at $4 billion.”

Russia is ready to sell additional weapons to Azerbaijan was indicated by General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian army’s General Staff, during a visit to Baku last month. Later in April, an aide to the Azerbaijani minister of defense industry expressed hope that Moscow will solidify its status as Azerbaijan’s number one supplier of military equipment.

The Azerbaijani military has received Russian tanks, armored vehicles, artillery systems, attack helicopters and other offensive weapons as part of a massive build-up which Baku hopes will help it regain control over Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian-controlled districts surrounding it.