BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 13
Trend:
“I had a strong feeling during negotiations that Armenia doesn’t want a solution. They say they want but they do everything in order not to have this solution. What we have seen after we liberated the territories, those fortifications, those huge hundred millions of dollars investments in mining, in building this defense lines,” said President Ilham Aliyev as he responded to question at the “New vision for South Caucasus: Post-conflict development and cooperation” conference held at ADA University.
“We clearly understand that they were doing it in order to keep these lands under occupation forever. So, their tactics were actually to be in the process of negotiations, I mean the previous governments, to have kind of a process, to imitate, to negotiate, to agree on something, to disagree on other things. But when it comes to making a decisive step to step back as it was in France, in Rambouillet, as it was in 2009 after the Armenian side actually rejected the formula of settlement which provided the liberation of the surrounding territories of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan and leaving the so-called status for future negotiations. Therefore, this is how it works. So, you know it very well. With respect to our behavior during the war from the very beginning, it was very clear that Azerbaijan is conducting not only the war of the 21st century but the war of new morality if I may say so. When the war started my immediate commands to our military servicemen were to behave with dignity to behave in a moderate way, and to do maximum in order not to do damage civilians. And the fact that there have been less than 40 victims on the Armenian side among civilians clearly demonstrated. Because we were liberating territories,” the head of state said.
“Some territories were illegally inhabited. Therefore, our attacks, our technical capability were aimed only at military objects. And those less than 40 victims which the Armenian side had most of those people were participating in the military operations. They were civilians who were recruited to the military units and they were part of military operations. The way how we treated those who were left behind also is a clear demonstration of the human nature of our policy and the human behavior of our army. There have been several elderly people left behind for instance in the province of Hadrut. And when our soldiers came they saw these people. They were frightened. The elderly people, spoke very good Azerbaijani, because they lived together with Azerbaijanis, and they were taken to the hospital. They were treated in our hospitals. Then, when we decided and the Red Cross was involved to return them back, Armenia refused to receive them,” President Ilham Aliyev added.