Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 11
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
Azerbaijan, as an important country in the Islamic world, as a secular and tolerant state that honors Muslim traditions, voiced an important message yesterday: “Armenia is an enemy of Muslim countries.”
Indeed, Armenia, which has occupied 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territories and has committed genocide against the civilians in the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly, cannot be a reliable partner and a friend of the Islamic world and its individual representatives.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the First Summit on Science and Technology of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Astana, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that a two-year-old Azerbaijani child and her grandmother were killed as a result of mortar shelling by Armenia in July this year.
“This is atrocity,” the president said. “This is another bloody crime of Armenian fascism.”
“Under orders of the Armenian leadership, all our mosques in occupied Azerbaijani lands have been destroyed. The photos of the destroyed mosques of Shusha, Aghdam and the country’s other cities are documentary evidence of Armenian vandalism.”
President Aliyev also stressed that Islamophobia in Armenia has reached its peak.
“Armenia is trying very hard to expand its ties with various Muslim countries. One should not believe Armenia’s hypocritical and deceitful words. Armenia, which has destroyed our sacred mosques in Azerbaijan, cannot be a friend of Muslim countries,” President Aliyev added.
Indeed, Armenia, which is isolated because of its occupation policy, is trying to establish at least any relations with neighboring Iran, which has remained as one of the two ways of Yerevan’s communication with the world.
However, considering the perfidious and deceitful nature of the Armenian leadership, there is no doubt that at the first opportunity Yerevan will refuse to support Iran in favor of its own interests or the interests of its new friends.
It is very important for Armenia to demonstrate friendly relations towards Iran in every possible way. Armenia hopes that Iran will help it join regional projects, from which it was withdrawn because of its occupation policy.
For many years, Yerevan has been cherishing the idea of building an Armenian-Iranian railway. However, in fact, Iran has neither money, nor special interest. Iran actively promotes another project. The Azerbaijani, Russian and Iranian presidents signed a declaration on creation of the North-South transport corridor in Baku in August 2016. According to the declaration, the sides will continue to mutually contribute to implementation of new projects to connect railways as part of the North-South international transport corridor.
Muslim countries must understand that Armenia thinks that the entire Islamic world is an enemy of the Armenian people.
As a result of occupation of Azerbaijani lands by Armenia, tens of thousands of people were killed and more than one million people were expelled from their lands – which means Armenia cannot be a partner of any Muslim country in the region and the world.