Restoring Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and liberating territories occupied by Armenia have been the country’s main goals in recent years.
President Ilham Aliyev said this at the opening ceremony of the 7th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, themed “Dialogue for a Common Future,” in Baku, Operative Information Center-OMM reports.
The head of state said negotiations over the years had produced no results and that the format was designed not only to prevent a resolution to the conflict but to keep it frozen:
“Apparently, major powers had reached a consensus on this in the world. But they miscalculated in relation to the plans and ideas of the Azerbaijani people and government. They should have known that, as a country under occupation, we would never accept violations of our people’s basic human rights.”
Aliyev said Azerbaijan had never lost hope:
“We saw that negotiations were leading nowhere, so we decided to make our efforts. Relying on the UN Charter, Article 51, which establishes the right to self-defence, we defeated the enemy. In doing so, we liberated our territories that had been under occupation for years and restored international law. Through our own strength, we implemented the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council in 1993. They demanded the complete withdrawal of Armenian forces from our lands, but had remained only on paper.”
