nuclear-news

Azerbaijan dramatically escalated tensions amid its border battle with Armenia this week with an implicit threat to bomb the region’s only nuclear power plant and unleash “great catastrophe” on Armenians.

The July 16 warning drew outrage from Yerevan and deepened concerns that the worst violence in four years between Azerbaijan and Armenia, who are technically still in a war begun in the late 1980s, could quickly spiral out of control.

At least 16 Azerbaijanis and Armenians have died in the fighting near a northern section of their internationally recognized border that has included heavy artillery, tank, and drone attacks since it began on July 12.

Yerevan and Baku routinely threaten and accuse the other of provocations that have killed dozens of people in recent years, many of them civilians, with neither side willing to back down publicly for fear of being viewed as weak in the more than 30-year-long standoff.

The strategic or tactical aim of either side in contributing to this week’s violence is unclear.

But the reframing of the current flareup to include a missile attack on a Soviet-built nuclear plant — a move that could massively increase the death toll and set off a Chernobyl-like fallout in the region and beyond — took many people by surprise.

“The Armenian side must not forget that our army’s state-of-the-art missile systems allow us to strike the Metsamor nuclear plant with precision, which could lead to a great catastrophe for Armenia,” Vagif Dargahli, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry spokesman, said on July 16, hours after hostilities had resumed following a one-day lull. …….

There are some 3 million people living in Armenia.

The Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant lies just a few kilometers from cities with tens of thousands of people and 35 kilometers from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, and its 1 million inhabitants…………

Emil Sanamyan, a blogger and fellow at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies, said Baku’s threat involved its possession of a missile system it purchased from Israel.

“Just to be clear: With this statement issued yesterday, [the] Azerbaijani Defense Ministry is threatening to use the LORA surface-to-surface missile it bought from Israel…to attack Armenia’s nuclear power plant to cause a leak of radiation.”…………..

https://www.rferl.org/a/idle-threat-azerbaijani-hint-at-missile-strike-on-armenian-nuclear-plant-increases-tensions/30733672.html