How to enable nginx proxy pass?

I have an inner server that runs my application. This application runs on port 9001. I want people access this application through nginx which runs on an Ubuntu machine that runs on DMZ network.

I have built nginx from source with the options of sticky and SSL modules. It runs fine but does not do the proxy pass.

The DNS name for the outer IP of the server is: bd.com.tr and I want people to see the page http://ift.tt/1OMShBu when they enter bd.com.tr but even tough nginx redirects the root request to my desired path, the application does not show up.

My nginx.conf file is:

worker_processes  4;
error_log  logs/error.log;

worker_rlimit_nofile 20480;

pid        logs/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections  1900;
}

http {
    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;
    server_tokens off;
    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    keepalive_timeout  75;

    rewrite_log on;
    proxy_set_header        Host $host;
    proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header        X-Ssl on;
    proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_read_timeout      150;

    server  {

        listen 80;
        client_max_body_size 300M;

        location = / {
                rewrite ^ http://ift.tt/1OMShBu redirect;
         }

         location /public {
           proxy_pass http://BACKEND_IP:9001;
        }
    }

}

What might I be missing?