BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 2. President Ilham Aliyev, in an interview with Euronews, once again openly declared Azerbaijan's peaceful position, the veteran of the security agencies of Azerbaijan, Colonel Azer Garayev, told Trend.
He pointed out that the leader of the nation stopped Armenians from spreading false information by highlighting the fact that Azerbaijan is the peacemaker and favors peace in an interview with a foreign TV channel.
"The opinion expressed by President Ilham Aliyev during the interview, and especially the messages addressed to the Armenians, is enough for any sane person or society to realize the existing realities and, most importantly, the truth. Azerbaijan's historic victory in the Second Karabakh War has become a reality that has changed the future of the region. Conditions favorable for peace and development have been created for the entire region at the moment, which were formed by Azerbaijan under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev. The messages addressed to the Armenians by President Ilham Aliyev are also a serious contribution to the peace process in the region. These messages will have a great impact on accelerating the peace process. During the interview, the President of Azerbaijan explained the essence of many issues. He pointed out that Armenians had been deceived for years, convinced of false ideas with the help of a fake story and the myth of the "invincible army."
He noted that President Ilham Aliyev openly declared the position of Azerbaijan.
"The president's unequivocal statement that Azerbaijan has no territorial claims has once again disproved Armenia's false claims. This statement once again shows that a peace treaty can be signed in the very near future and that Azerbaijan is not the party that postpones it; on the contrary, our country supports the peace agreement. In addition, the head of state, speaking about the Armenian residents of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh, stressed that first of all, they should not be led by the ambitions of false leaders, and they should realize that this does not promise a happy future. If they want to live in peace and prosperity, they should listen to the words of the president of Azerbaijan," Garayev said.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev gave an interview to the Euronews TV channel in Shusha on July 22. The interview was featured on Euronews in the episode, which was released on August 2.
In an interview with Euronews, President Ilham Aliyev, in particular, stated that Azerbaijan has no territorial claims against Armenians, although hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis lived in Armenia before the war, against whom full-scale ethnic cleansing was applied and their cultural and religious heritage was completely destroyed.
"Nevertheless, we don't have any territorial claims. We think that Azerbaijanis, who were deported forcefully from Armenia, have a right to return when Azerbaijan and Armenia normalize their relations and establish diplomatic relations.
Another message to them is to clearly realize the current geopolitical situation and the balance of forces. For many years, the leaders of Armenia were persuading their people that they have the strongest army in the world, that if the war starts, they will come to Baku, and that Azerbaijan will not fight for its lands because it has already agreed to the occupation. All these narratives were absolutely false and nothing more than propaganda. So, the war destroyed those narratives, and not only that. It also destroyed a lot of the ideological columns of the Armenian state. They realized that they lost the war, and most probably it was very painful for them psychologically. So now, when we say that we want peace, it's not because we are weak; we are seeking peace. No, they know that we are much stronger. It’s because we want this black page of our history to be turned down. We don't want another war, either today or in the future.
So for the Armenian community, I think they should not oppose the peace initiatives of the international community. They should understand that if they don't sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan, the situation in the future will be unpredictable. The geopolitical situation in the world and in the region is changing very dramatically. And part of their hopes for their security vanished completely. Now they're looking for new security guarantors. Who is ready to have a standoff with Azerbaijan on the battlefield in this area, especially after what we demonstrated during the war and after we increased our defense capability after the war? Is there anyone ready to fight for Armenians against us? I doubt it.
So, another message, which I already conveyed to the Armenian government, is that in this particular situation, for them, the choice is not the best and the very best. For them, the choice is between very bad and acceptable, but acceptable based on common sense, international law, and recognizing the rights of Azerbaijanis to live on their own land, which they deprived us of for 30 years.
And for Armenians in Karabakh, I'd like to remind them that we started contact with them spontaneously. Actually, it was mainly people-to-people contacts when we started to build a new Lachin road, which passed through several villages where Armenians live. I was informed that contacts had been established between our road construction workers and the Armenian community, and immediately they became almost friends. If, in the first months of the construction, Russian peacekeepers were providing security for both sides, then they just left. There were no Russian peacekeepers, and people easily communicated without them. So it demonstrates that ordinary people, in their majority, don't have this hatred in their hearts," said the president.