Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev admitted a gross violation of the principle of non-use of force. He made his admission at the opening ceremony of the 10th Baku Global Forum, themed “The World Today: Challenges and Hopes,” in Baku.
According to him, “Conflicts can be resolved in two ways: peacefully and non-peacefully. We made great efforts to resolve the conflict with Armenia peacefully, despite the fact that the Armenian occupation in Azerbaijan caused a humanitarian crisis, with more than 1 million Azerbaijanis left homeless, becoming refugees and internally displaced persons,” Aliyev said, citing inflated figures.
The Azerbaijani leader noted that “the OSCE Minsk Group wants the Karabakh conflict to be frozen forever. In 1992, immediately after the outbreak of the conflict, the OSCE established the Minsk Group. But, unfortunately, over 28 years the Minsk Group achieved no results. And at the end of the negotiation process, it seemed to us that they simply wanted to freeze the situation. They wanted this conflict to be frozen forever. But we did not agree. We did what we deemed necessary, using our right to self-defence, the UN Charter, particularly its article. We liberated our territories by force. That was our legal right.”
“The people of Azerbaijan have the moral right to demand revenge, and I can understand that. But the essence of my words is that we took revenge on the battlefield. We committed no war crimes, unlike the Armenians. We did not commit genocide, unlike the Armenians. And we took revenge on the battlefield. And now, the time for peace has come,” Aliyev said.
President Aliyev said that immediately after the war, in November 2020, Azerbaijan took the initiative to begin peace negotiations and presented 5 principles that could serve as a basis for signing a peace agreement with Armenia. “We hope that international actors trying to support this issue will convince Armenia not to miss this opportunity.” At the same time, Aliyev assured that Baku wants peace. “We do not want another war. We believe that achieving peace is possible.”
There is no obstacle to achieving peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Azerbaijani president stressed. “What was agreed between Azerbaijan and Armenia last October, particularly regarding mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, in fact shows that there is no obstacle to achieving peace.”
Aliyev also noted that Azerbaijan is a multi-religious, multi-ethnic country: “Therefore, I am confident that the life of Armenians living in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region will be much better than during the occupation. Every conflict has its own history, its own dynamics and its own end. But the important thing is that disputes between countries be resolved on the basis of international law; territorial integrity and sovereignty cannot be changed by force.”
