Aliyev Explains Why He Displaced Armenians from Artsakh and Initiated the 44-Day War

The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has stated that Azerbaijan has allegedly been working for years towards a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. According to him, the main purpose of the Minsk Group's activities was not to resolve the conflict but to freeze it in favor of Armenia. This information comes from local media reports.

Aliyev noted that in 2018 there was an opportunity to reach an agreement on a peaceful resolution when the government changed in Armenia. He said, 'At that time, we received assurances from the new Armenian government that they would act in accordance with international law and that the territories would be returned. We had such expectations. If the new government of Armenia at that time had preferred to behave as they do now, there would have been no need to forcibly restore our sovereignty.'

However, he lamented that in 2019, the new leadership of Armenia made absolutely unacceptable proposals. For example, it demanded that Azerbaijan negotiate with the separatists. According to him, all of their developments regarding the principles of a peace agreement would have to be deleted, and they would be forced to start everything from scratch, while Armenia was not going to return any occupied territories.

Aliyev claimed that the Armenian Prime Minister's statement, 'Artsakh is Armenia, period,' is a blatant violation of international law. He emphasized that this was the reason for the war that began in September-November 2020.

The Azerbaijani president also 'explained' why he displaced Armenians from Artsakh. Aliyev claimed that the reason was a letter sent by the Armenian Prime Minister to the leaders of Artsakh congratulating them on their independence. 'This was a great and bad surprise for us, as the same Armenian Prime Minister publicly recognized Azerbaijan's territorial integrity at the meeting in Prague in 2022 and repeatedly stated that Armenia has no territorial claims against Azerbaijan,' Aliyev said, adding that a second reason was the presidential elections held in Artsakh on September 9.