OREANDA-NEWS. September 04, 2009. Azerbaijan passes to NATO standards on organizing and functioning of Military Forces.

Chief of press-service the Azerbaijan Ministry  of Defense Eldar Sabiroglu stated at the special news conference that structural changes, launched by the Ministry  of Defense in 2007,  have already been completed.

“The structure of naval, air, land parts of Azerbaijani military forces  were brought to conformity with   NATO standards. We are sure that these changes will play the positive role in development of activity our armed forces and operative management of troops,” E.Sabiroglu said.

In his opinion, success of reform was confirmed by conducted in June prestrategic   maneuvers, in which over  4,000 military men, 99 tanks, 55 armored troop-carriers, 123 artillery systems, 12 battle airplanes, 12 battle and 5 transport helicopters took part.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev observed  the maneuvers on  June 24.

“The maneuvers showed once again, that battle readiness of the Azerbaijani army was on high level and able to prevent and hold off the attack of enemy in any extreme situations,” E.Sabiroglu said.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense has connections with the departments of defense of 52 states and Azerbaijan concluded  agreements with 26 countries in the military sphere and prepares such agreements with another 23 countries.