Home / Politics / President Ilham Aliyev: We are going to the end, we didn’t stop

President Ilham Aliyev: We are going to the end, we didn’t stop

President İlham Aliyev

We are going to the end. We didn’t stop, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to the Russian RBC TV channel, Trend reports.

“If the Armenian side is committed to the ceasefire regime, then, as I said yesterday, the phase of political settlement will begin and the phase of coercion to negotiations will end. Therefore, we will go to the end anyway. Our goal remains unchanged. Restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, which is recognized by the entire world community, the return of Azerbaijanis to the places of their original traditional residence, including Shusha and other settlements of Nagorno-Karabakh, and, of course, to all other territories outside the administrative border of the former NKAO. Therefore, our goal remains unchanged. The question is about how we will move towards this goal? We have always tried to follow the political path and have always heard that there is no military solution. We have proven that this is not the case. We showed on the battlefield that this is not the case and that these negotiations would have lasted another 30 years without a military component. What would have happened before that? Illegal settlement. This is an international crime and a violation of the Geneva Convention. Unfortunately, no-one ever reacted to this – the Minsk Group, the European Union, or the UN. The destruction of Azerbaijan’s historical heritage, the destruction of our cultural, historical, and religious sites, the change of place names, the change of administrative boundaries of our regions, the change of the names of our mountains, rivers, and cities. In other words, we would have had to wait another 30 years, and then we would have been told that this is what the situation is like now, so put up with it. We have already been told that. Therefore, I think that the military component, or its first stage, has come to an end, we have now reached a political settlement which will secure that we reach the end and get what is rightfully ours. Therefore, I think that Azerbaijani society will perceive what happened yesterday and tonight correctly and continue to support our policy. Because we have always told our people the truth. We have always defended the interests of our people. What happened on the battlefield proved it to everyone again,” the head of state said.

About Fidan Abdullayeva