Azerbaijan on Tuesday appealed to Russia to stop military training with arch-foe Armenia until a long dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region was resolved.

"The expansion of Russian-Armenian military cooperation goes against Russian policies that are based on the support of territorial integrity, regional stability, cooperation and trust," the Azeri Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The statement protested against Russian training exercises with Armenian troops at the end of March on a Russian base in Armenia, not far from the Azeri border. "Russian-Armenian military training violates the military and political balance in the Caucasus region, threatens to break the ceasefire regime between Azerbaijan and Armenia and undermines the idea of a regional security system," the ministry added. Russian military cooperation with Armenia has been a prickly issue for the Azeris since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, of which all three states were part. Azeri President Haydar Aliyev has criticised Russia for supplying Armenian with millions of dollars worth of arms and keeping bases in Armenia and neighbouring Georgia. Members of the Russian government confirmed shipments of the arms to Armenia from 1994-1996, but said they had not been paid for and had not been authorised by the Russian government.