BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 11. An entity called Nagorno-Karabakh never existed in history, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, as he received the participants of the 53rd meeting of the Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services of the CIS member countries, Trend reports.
"There was Karabakh Khanate, which became a part of the Russian Empire in 1805. The Kurekchay Peace Treaty was signed, on behalf of the Azerbaijani side it was signed by the Karabakh khan, his position was called the khan of Karabakh and Shusha Ibrahim Khalil. On the Russian side, it was signed by Royal General Tsitsianov. The text of the Treaty of Kurekchay is available on the Internet and everyone can familiarize themselves with it. There is no mention of the Armenian population or any special rights of the Armenian population in it. In other words, it clearly says again, and historians know it well, that Karabakh is ancient land inhabited by Azerbaijanis who have lived on this territory for centuries, for millennia. After the Kurekchay Peace Treaty, there were two more treaties between Azerbaijani khanates and Russia – the 1813 Gulistan Peace Treaty and the 1828 Turkmenchay Peace Treaty, according to which other Azerbaijani khanates, including Iravan, became part of Russia. Also, these documents naturally referred to Azerbaijani lands. After the Sovietization of the South Caucasus, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was created. Why was it created? Because after those 19th century documents, mass resettlement of the Armenian population to the territory of Azerbaijan from Persia and Eastern Anatolia began. And by the time of Sovietization, the national composition of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan was not the same as it was before the beginning of the 19th century. Based on this, maybe there were some other reasons too, the Soviet power, the Soviet Union created the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, not even a republic, but a region within the Azerbaijan SSR. It was exactly one hundred years ago. By the time centrifugal tendencies started to emerge in the Soviet Union, Armenian separatism and aggressive extremism raised its head. By late 1980s, informal extremist organizations were created. Unfortunately, this was not properly assessed by the Soviet leadership and in many cases it was even encouraged by it.
We all remember who was at the head of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and, naturally, it was impossible to expect anything else. All this led to the fact that the traditional relations of peace, friendship and harmony between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples were disrupted, a harmful ideology of national exclusivity and superiority was thrown in and attempts were made to justify claims to the Karabakh land of Azerbaijan. These tendencies were transformed into overt aggression after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the occupation of Azerbaijani lands. As a result, about 20 percent of the territory of Azerbaijan – both the Karabakh region and the former Nagorno-Karabakh region, as well as seven districts that had nothing to do with that autonomous formation, were also occupied. Ethnic cleansing was carried out, more than a million Azerbaijanis were expelled from their native lands and the situation remained as such until the fall of 2020. Azerbaijan tried to resolve the issue peacefully in every possible way. We were engaged in long and fruitless negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE. By the way, the fact that this conflict was not resolved shows that the OSCE is in need of major transformation. We also see in this conflict the inability of the United Nations to use its authority and leverage, because although four resolutions of the UN Security Council were adopted, demanding the immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azerbaijani territory, they were not implemented. We waited for a long time. We had hopes. I was also involved in the negotiations at different stages from 2004, but unfortunately, all hopes collapsed in 2019. Then the prime minister of Armenia said that “Karabakh is Armenia, full stop”, thereby putting an end to all negotiations and making them completely meaningless. Not to mention the fact that it was an open territorial claim to the sovereign state of Azerbaijan, because no country in the world, including Armenia itself, had recognized the so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”. So this provocative, reckless and I would even say suicidal, as it turned out, step of the Armenian leadership, as well as other provocative actions, including those of military nature, led to the Second Karabakh War in September 2020, which lasted 44 days and ended with the complete defeat of the Armenian army and restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Through the mediation of the Russian Federation and personally President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a Trilateral Statement was signed on the night of 9-10 November, 2020, according to which the territories of the districts adjacent to the former Nagorno-Karabakh region that were still under occupation were also returned to Azerbaijan, and the Russian peacekeeping contingent was brought into the region," President Ilham Aliyev said.