Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev says his country's army is ready to retake the rebel region of Nagorno-Karabakh if talks with Armenia fail on Sunday.

President Aliyev warns that if his meeting with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarksyan produces no result, he would have "no other option". Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Backed by Armenia, the region broke away from Azerbaijain in a three-year war that left some 30,000 dead and over a million homeless. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was agreed in 1994.

An Armenian tank in Nagorno-Karabakh (Photo: Wikimedia)