BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15
Trend:
The signs of revanchism is visible in Armenian society, in their political spectrum, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to the Spanish El Pais newspaper, Trend reports.
“More than one year passed since the war ended and general situation is relatively stable. If we talk about the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping forces in the area of Karabakh, situation is more stable than on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And the reason is that Armenia, unfortunately, did not put down the attempts to take revenge. Their loss in the second Karabakh war was very painful for them. It was absolutely demolishing their ideological grounds, their propaganda for almost 30 years about the unbeatable army, about their strength, about the bravery of their soldiers and commanders. Because during the 44 days of war, the Armenian army was totally destroyed and they had to sign the capitulation act on November 10 last year, actually agreeing to give back the territories which we did not manage to recapture during the 44-day war. Therefore, the signs of revanchism is visible in Armenian society, in their political spectrum. Therefore, understanding that in the area where the Russian peacekeepers are serving, it is not possible. They are trying to make provocations, military provocations on the state border. Another issue is that the state border between Azerbaijan and Armenia was not identified. Because the occupation of that part of Azerbaijan was taking place in the beginning of 1990s right after the restoration of the independence of both countries. Therefore, physically and politically it was not possible to demarcate and delimitate the border. Therefore, when the second Karabakh war ended, last November, the climatic situation in that part of the area was different from other parts,” President Ilham Aliyev said.
“It’s high mountainous and it was full of snow. So the snow started to melt in May this year. As soon as it happened, Azerbaijani forces were moving towards the state border, and took the positions on the state border based on our understanding where this border is going. So, that was the story and unfortunately Armenia started to make claims that Azerbaijan is interfering into Armenia’s territory without any grounds. So we are standing now where we think it’s our territory. We from the very first days of the end of the Karabakh war made a proposal to Armenia to start working on delimitation, to establish a joint working group on delimitation and to clarify all the disputes on the table. During this more than one year after the war ended, there have been several attempts by Armenia to make military provocations on the state border. All of them failed. As a result of all these attempts, they lost their military positions, and Azerbaijan strengthened this position on the state border. The same happened last month, when they deliberately provoked Azerbaijani forces. It lasted several days and during the first days there was no shooting just Azerbaijani soldiers explained them that it’s not their territory, that they have to leave and they left,” Azerbaijani president said.
“But they started to launch artillery attacks on us and we had several victims and several wounded. Now situation is stable. We did not plan anything ourselves. Otherwise, we would not stop. The clash on 16 November lasted less than one day. It started in the morning and ended at around 6-7 pm. So, if we planned it, we wouldn’t have stopped, because Armenia doesn’t have a military capability to stop us in any destination. We don’t have this plan, therefore we stopped. We want peace and it’s enough of war. We want stability, predictability, and zero risk for any kind of attempt from Armenia to take revanchist actions. Therefore, we will be very closely watching all their maneuvers, all their regroupings and all their attempts to once again create the military potential that can be a danger for us. If we see it happens, we will destroy it immediately and they know it. And international players know it. If we see positive dynamics, we definitely will take advantage of that and make contribution to strengthen peace,” the head of state said.