«Azerbaijan has restored historical justice and international law», Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev declared at a military parade in Baku, stating that Azerbaijani soldiers fought for 44 days «to put an end to the occupation».
According to him, «Armenia’s aggressive and occupation policy began in the late 1980s»:
«At that time, Azerbaijanis living in the territory of modern Armenia were expelled from their ancestral lands. Zangezur, Geghche (Sevan), Iravan — these are all historical Azerbaijani lands. Our people lived there for centuries, but the Armenian leadership expelled hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from their ancestral lands. Then the same picture was seen in Karabakh — the Khojaly genocide, the occupation of Shushi and Lachin, which connected the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia», the Azerbaijani President declared.
«Despite the fact that we reached the restoration of territorial integrity on the front line, I believe that the political and diplomatic efforts undertaken in recent years have borne fruit. All leading international organizations have recognized and supported Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Armenia was not able to compete with us. Over the past 17 years, I have said many times that if Armenia does not voluntarily return our lands, we will solve this issue by military means. And today we were able to achieve the desired», Aliev said.
