Chronicles of Victory (October 2, 2020): President Ilham Aliyev interviewed by Al Jazeera TV (PHOTO/VIDEO)

BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 2. On October 2,
2020, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was
interviewed by Al Jazeera TV channel.
Trend presents the interview:
Correspondent: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev,
thank you for talking to Al Jazeera.
President Ilham Aliyev: Very glad to see
you.
Correspondent: It’s been two decades since the present
conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has begun and you’ve been
through lots of ups and downs but no peace has been succeeded so
far. Why has this conflict been dragging for so long?
President Ilham Aliyev: The main reason is that
Armenia doesn’t want peace. They want to keep our lands under
occupation forever. They don’t want to change the status quo and
this is a reason why it lasted so long. Because otherwise, if
Armenia demonstrated a good will and acted in compliance with the
resolutions of main international organizations the conflict would
have been resolved many years ago. Because back in 1993, when
Armenia occupied part of our territories UN security council
adopted four resolutions demanding immediate, full and
unconditional withdrawal of their troops from our territories. But
these resolutions remain on paper. Minsk group which was created in
order to facilitate, to find the solution, already is in activity
for 28 years, and also without any results. Therefore, the main
reason is they said the position of Armenia, the second reason is
that lack of insistence from the side of the mediators and lack of
pressure on Armenia to start demanding resolutions of United
Nations Security Council. On many occasions, I raised this issue
and was saying that international sanctions must be imposed on
Armenia to force them to comply with resolutions and to start
liberation of our territories but my appeals were not answered
properly, and now what is happening is a result of Armenia’s
destructive policy.
Correspondent: So, you say Azerbaijan doesn’t have the
international support that it deserves based on the international
legal concerns?
President Ilham Aliyev: From point of view of
international law norms and decisions and resolutions of
international organizations, we have very broad support. As I
already mentioned UN Security Council resolutions which is
resolutions of the highest international body adopted resolutions
asking Armenia or demanding Armenia to withdraw their troops. The
General Assembly of United Nations did the same, other
international organizations, like Organization of Islamic
Cooperation, Non-Aligned Movement, European Parliament and others
did the same but it is not enough, so we have a legal framework for
the resolution. But there is not enough practical pressure on
aggressor and here we see the contradiction between international
law, and what is happening in reality. So, such an open ignorance
of the norms and principles of international law by Armenia, should
be a good indicator that international law doesn’t work, or it
works selectively. In some cases, as you know, Security Council
resolutions are being implemented within days, if not hours, but in
our case it is on paper for so many years. So, lack of practical
pressure on aggressor is also one of the reasons the conflict lasts
so long.
Correpondent: You have accused Armenia of starting the
war, this conflict actually. Many can argue that Armenia having the
territory it has and victory of the velvet revolution in 2018,
wouldn’t risk starting an armed conflict. What would you
say?
President Ilham Aliyev: Well, I don’t know,
what are the reasons for such kind of analysis but what we see
here, we see what is happening on the ground. If we look at what
Armenia did after so-called revolution, during the last two years,
and what they declare, we will see that they were almost provoking
us, and they were aiming at starting new war and the reason is to
disrupt negotiations completely. They made several military
provocations against Azerbaijan. On 12 July, they attacked our
villages and our military positions far away from the region of the
conflict, in the area of Tovuz, in the western part of Azerbaijan,
on Armenian-Azerbaijani border. And it was absolutely difficult to
understand why they did it. They attacked us with the heavy
artillery. The first victims among military servicemen were
Azerbaijanis, four our military servicemen were killed immediately,
and one 76 year old villager. So, we had to respond, and after we
responded and they suffered bitter defeat, they withdrew and
started to plea for a ceasefire and then I said that we do not have
any military objectives on the territory of Armenia. Therefore, as
soon as we pushed them back and they already realized that it
didn’t work, the clashes stopped. It lasted only four days. Then,
on August 23, the sabotage group which was sent by Armenian army to
penetrate our territory, and to commit acts of terror was dispersed
as the head of the sabotage group was detained. And he is now under
investigation, he gives evidence that he was sent in order to
commit terror acts against our civilians and military servicemen.
It was not us who did it, it was them. And then what happened on 27
September is a logical continuation of this policy. Apart from
that, if you look at what they have declared, what they have
stated, it’s also absolutely clear that they were provoking us.
Armenian prime minister a year ago made a statement that Karabakh
is Armenia and this statement makes negotiations absolutely
senseless. Because one of the main item on the negotiation table is
the return of the occupied territories to Azerbaijan. And if he
says Karabakh is Armenia and in his understanding Karabakh is not
only former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous district but also all the
occupied territories, that means that they don’t want to return
these territories back, that means end of negotiations.
Correspondent: So why would Armenia risk a
provocation?
President Ilham Aliyev: First, I think they
wanted to destroy completely negotiation process. Then they wanted
to put a blame on us, as they do it, and say that look, with
Azerbaijan it is not possible to have negotiations. And I think one
of the reasons could be the internal difficulties. Because we know
what is happening now in Armenia, they suffer very serious
political crisis. The leader of main opposition party was arrested
two days before they launched an attack. Two former presidents are
under criminal investigation, and actually dictatorial regime have
been established in Armenia. All the promises which their prime
minister was giving after revolution just are on paper, nothing was
implemented. They have one of the worst in the world per capita
situation with pandemic, so to distract attention and he managed
to. And now what he is trying to do to consolidate society in front
of the so-called Azerbaijani aggression and to strengthen his
personal rule. So, everything is very logical from their point of
view, but they did a very big mistake, and moreover, before the
aggression, several days before, I was speaking at UN General
Assembly, saying that they are preparing for war and they must be
stopped. And that’s what happened.
Correspondent: You said before that the Armenian
military must unconditionally withdraw from the territories that
they have occupied. What do you aim for in the region as
Azerbaijan?
President Ilham Aliyev: We?
Correspondent: Yes.
President Ilham Aliyev: We still keep our
position unchanged. What I am demanding is absolutely in line with
international law, because the whole world recognizes territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan, and no country in the world recognizes the
so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic". What I am saying is
completely almost the wording of the UN Security Council
Resolutions. And they need to leave our territory, and then, the
war will stop and then the conflict will come to an end. And then,
maybe some time later people of Azerbaijan and Armenia can again
live together, in piece. So, that’s our position, and it is
unchanged, and it is based on historical truth, it is based on
international law and also it is based on today’s political and
geo-political realities in our region. I think Armenian government
overestimated their so-called importance on global arena,
overestimated the possible international support to them and made
very serious mistakes provoking us, attacking us and now they are
suffering the very serious defeat.
Correspondent: Would you accept going to the negotiation
table with Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan?
President Ilham Aliyev: Actually negotiations
stopped, because after his statement that Karabakh is Armenia, I
said there is no rule for negotiations but our Minsk group
co-chairs were making requests to me that Azerbaijan show maybe
more how to say understanding, with respect to the fact that
Armenian government is new, and maybe they do not completely
control their emotions and their words. And I said okay. Let’s try.
We want to find a peaceful solution therefore, we waited for so
many years and probably negotiations would have been continued if
not for this distractive approach. And after that statement I had a
meeting with Armenian Prime Minister but they were absolutely
meaningless. They were formal. He was telling me that they are not
going to give territories back. And then, what to talk about? If
they don’t want to do that, if they go against elaborated
principles by the Minsk-Group, which they elaborated for years, and
means that he destroys negotiations. Negotiations cannot be held
unilaterally. We need to have a partner but, in Armenia so far we
don’t have a partner for negotiations.
Correspondent: So, can we say that Azerbaijan’s
preconditioning for coming to a negotiating table is that Armenia
withdraws from the occupied territories?
President Ilham Aliyev: Actually, it was
Armenian Prime Minister who put precondition to us. And that, by
the way is another provocation. I think several months ago he put
seven preconditions to Azerbaijan. Actually, he wanted to dictate
his agenda, to us and to the Minsk-Group. And one of those
preconditions was that Azerbaijan should negotiate with the
so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh authorities". And not only we but also
Minsk-Group rejected it. Because it changes completely the format
of negotiations, which was elaborated for more than twenty years.
And negotiations are taking place between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
So, he puts precondition on us and we rejected it. And the reason
why he did it was again, he wanted negotiations to stop and keep
the status quo unchanged. As far as we are concerned, we are always
ready for negotiations. We never rejected it, we had difficult
times in negotiation process in previous years. Not everything was
going smoothly. But, with the previous Armenian leaders we had a
process. And we were elaborating the so-called step by step
approach. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been in this process for so
many years. It was not useless time. I think we have made a very
big progress. I am in this process since 2003, and I worked with
two previous Armenian presidents and we made progress. It was not
easy, we had of course big variety of use but we were making step
by step progress and we elaborated what we have now. And after
Pashinyan came to power, he not only destroys everything before
him, and he wants to pretend that Armenia before him did not exist
and he is now the creator of new Armenia and he destroyed all the
elaborated principles. Therefore, full responsibility is on him and
his government. And by the way, reasonable people in Armenia
understand it. They were already making statements alarming
Armenian population that this person leads their country to
catastrophe. It is not a way how to behave on negotiations, it is
not a way how to provoke Azerbaijan. Another provocation was the
so-called inauguration of the so-called leader of Nagorno-Karabakh
in the ancient Azerbaijani city of Shusha. No other so-called
"Nagorno-Karabakh leader" did that. Why he did it. In order to
insult the feelings of Azerbaijanis. Then, they decided to move the
so-called parliament of "Nagorno-Karabakh" from Khankandi to
Shusha. Why? Another insult on Azerbaijanis. They openly resettle
Armenians from Lebanon to the occupied territories, demonstrate it
on TV which is a brutal violation of Geneva Convention, in order to
demonstrate their hatred to us. Everything what he did was to
destroy negotiation process. Therefore, now when they are pleading
for negotiations, when Pashinyan calls world leaders many times and
is complaining about Azerbaijan, I think those leaders should tell
him it was you who destroyed negotiations. It was you who provoked
Azerbaijan. It was you who insulted the feelings of Azerbaijanis.
Therefore, you must be responsible for that. And Armenian people
and I made an appeal a couple of days ago to Armenian people. They
should make him responsible for that. We don’t have a problem with
Armenian people, they are our citizens, we have thousands Armenians
living in Azerbaijan, and those who live in Nagorno-Karabakh area
we also consider them our citizens. And we invite them to live
together with us as many other nationalities and ethnicities who
live in Azerbaijan. Therefore, Armenia should refrain completely
from these provocative statements. They should make new statements
that Karabakh is not Armenia, and then, we will see.
Correspondent: So, within this deadlock, political
deadlock, would a Russian mediation work for
Azerbaijan?
President Ilham Aliyev: Russia is one of the
countries which is a mediator along with United States and France,
and during my involvement in this process for 17 years all 3
countries were equally involved in the process. And there was and
there is a quite a high level of coordination in the process. Of
course, Russia has a special position, because it’s a neighbor to
Azerbaijan, neighbor to the region. It does not have a state border
with Armenia, but nevertheless, Russia is a country which
Azerbaijan and Armenia have good relations and historical
relations. Therefore, of course, their role, their - I would say
capability to mediate are much higher due to objective reasons from
those who are situated far away from the region and maybe not
completely know what was happening here during the last decades.
Therefore, we think that three countries should continue to work
together if all of them keep neutrality. This is important. And we
are concerned that just recent days we see some statements which
are counter-productive and which are demonstrating a kind of a
change in the position in neutrality. Every country can have its
position, it’s normal. But if you are mediator in such a sensitive
issue, you should act in this capacity. If you want to act in your
national capacity, of course, but then you should step down from
the Minsk Group co-chairmanship and say whatever you want accuse
whomever you want, deliver stories about what happened which has no
proof and of course, nobody would object. But if you are a mediator
you have to be neutral. You have to be a mediator, otherwise
mediation will not be acceptable by us.
Correspondent: So, there are calls from the
international community for a ceasefire. But given the latest
statements by both Azerbaijan and Armenian side are you choosing to
ignore international calls for a ceasefire?
President Ilham Aliyev: No, we are not
ignoring. But ceasefire cannot be achieved unilaterally. I’m just
trying to deliver the message to those leaders who called me during
these days saying that it was not Azerbaijan who started it. We had
to defend ourselves. If we did not respond this time the way we
did, today we would have had hundreds of victims among civilians.
We still have a lot. This morning I received information we have 19
victims among civilians, two of them are children. We have 54
wounded people among civilians. And we have more than 300 houses
damaged or completely demolished by Armenian artillery. And they
attack our villages, they attack our people, they were to kill as
many Azerbaijanis as they can. They started yesterday to use long
distance missiles from the territory of Armenia. Thus, they make
this weapons which they use a legitimate target for Azerbaijan. And
we have to destroy those targets and then they will accuse us that
we attack Armenian territory. They want it. They want to invite
third parties to the conflict that these parties defend themselves
and provide for them another 30 years of illegal occupation.
Ceasefire okay, but on what conditions? Conditions must be that
they withdraw from the territories. I said just two days ago, let
them start withdrawal, let us have the timetable for withdrawal,
let them undertake serious obligations proved by mediators and the
ceasefire and also, obey the ceasefire regime and of course we will
also do the same. Why should we need this military clash? We need
our territories back by peaceful means and we demonstrated for 28
years our willingness to have peaceful settlement. During this 28
years there have been times of clashes and the biggest is now.
There was another one four years ago. So, that is our point and I
think it is absolutely reasonable taking into account what I said
about political and military provocations from Armenia.
Correspondent: So, when we look at the latest conflict,
Azerbaijan military gained some advance and took back some of the
villages around the Fuzuli district does it mean that Azerbaijan is
not going to withdraw from those areas that they have regained
control?
President Ilham Aliyev: No, of course not.
Because these areas belong to us. These areas the areas of our
ancient land, these areas are where our people lived for centuries
and they were occupied and destroyed by Armenians. There are
pictures in internet of what happened to Fuzuli what happened to
Aghdam, what happened to other cities and villages of Azerbaijan in
the southern-eastern part of the occupied territories. There are
also destructions in the districts of Lachin and Kalbajar where
they had some illegal settlements. But not as heavy as in this
area. Therefore, it’s our land, we regained it. We regained it by
force, we regained it giving our victims. we will never step back
from them. We will leave there, our people who were forcefully
deported from those territories today they live with one dream,
with one goal, for almost 30 years to go back. I can tell you there
was a very illustrative example when in April 2016 we liberated
part of the territories and gained as a result of the Armenian
aggressions we launched a counter-attack. And one of the villages
which was destroyed by Armenians and Azerbaijanis could not return
there because Armenians’ positions were on the mountains. We built
for refugees the new village and even those who never saw that
land, those who were born after, all of them returned to Jojug
Marjanli. I said Jojug Marjanly is a symbol of our dignity, a
symbol of our will, Jojug Marjanly is a symbol of our return, and I
said our return starts now. So, I am sure that all those who have
been deported from those territories will go back. There is nowhere
to go back. Because everything is destroyed. Everything. Not a
single building, everything was destroyed and of course, we will
help we will rebuild the cities. We will rebuild the villages. We
will return their initial names because Armenians committed a
cultural genocide against us. They destroyed all the mosques on the
occupied territories. They keep pigs and cows in the mosques, thus
insulting the feelings of all the Muslims. They changed the names
of our cities, changed the names of our villages. All the names
will go back. We will go back to our lands. This is our legitimate
right, this is a historical task for us and I am sure we will
succeed.
Correspondent: The Caucasus region is a very complex
one. Not only in terms of geography, but also when it comes to
culture, ethnicity and social structures. Do you believe in
peoples’ rights to self-determination?
President Ilham Aliyev: You know, this is the
point which Armenian propaganda often uses. Thus trying to mislead
the international public opinion, which of course broadly ordinary
people, they are not specialists in the international law. But
there are very clear identification of the basic principles of
international law, which have the reflection in the Helsinki Final
Act. Principle of territorial integrity is prevailing,
self-determination is one of the important principles of
international law. But if we go back to UN Charter, if we go back
to Helsinki Final Act, we will see that self-determination should
not damage territorial integrity of the countries. And other
important point, the territorial integrity of the country cannot be
changed by force, and cannot be changed without an agreement of the
people of the country. Therefore, in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict of course, self-determination is not working the way how
Armenians want to do it. And another argument, Armenian people
already self-determined themselves. They have independent Armenian
state. Today Armenians live everywhere. They live in France, they
live in America, they live in Russia, they live in Middle East, let
them ask for self-determination in those countries. What would be
reaction of authorities of those countries if Armenians would ask
the land which does not belong to them and ask this land only
because they now became majority? Their tactics which they use for
many-many years to come, to ask for support, to ask for land, and
then to start changing the historical identity of the territory,
making fake news about their so-called ancient history, and demand
those lands for them. Those countries which want to give
self-determination to Nagorno-Karabakh, let them give part of their
land to Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, take them and give
self-determination there. I would see what will be their
reaction.
Correspondent: The way I think we have right now you
have the Russians, Iranians, Turks, the French and the Americans
signaling concerns over the conflict. Could this conflict ever
become a regional one?
President Ilham Aliyev: I don’t think so. I
think there is no ground for that and we are strongly against this
conflict, to transform into a regional. That’s what Armenia wants
to do. Therefore, they invent fake news about some external support
to Azerbaijan. But at the same time, they are asking for external
support for themselves. That’s why I have the feelings that the
main target now when they suffer a very serious defeat on the
battle field, they want to make this conflict regional but I am
sure that the countries which you mentioned will never allow it to
happen. Because security in our region is in the interests of all
the regional countries and among those countries which you mention
- Turkey, Russia, Iran are regional countries. Other countries they
have nothing to do here in the region. And they are not regional
countries. They have the mandate, to facilitate the negotiations
because that happened in 1992. We are not responsible, me
personally for this composition of the Minsk-Group. If we decided
today about the composition of any Contact Group which could
facilitate peace, of course composition would have been completely
different. I don’t want now to specify, but some countries would
not have place in those group because of their biased behavior. So,
we need to do everything, especially the regional countries, to
stay away from the conflict, not to interfere in any sense to the
conflict and give the signal to Armenia: Stop occupation! Stop
occupation and then you will see the benefits. Then you will
integrate with the regional economic, investments, energy,
transportation projects, which Armenian leadership for many years
deprived Armenians from because of this aggression. So we need to
do everything that this conflict stops as soon as possible, the
resolution is found as soon as possible. We are not in the position
to listen to statements or stop it and we will work, we will
negotiate, we will help. We heard it many times, we don’t have time
to wait another 30 years. The conflict must be resolved now. Those
who want to help Armenia, their so-called close partners, let them
help by telling them ‘leave the territories’, ‘demonstrate your
will’, ‘stop firing’, tell that ‘today or tomorrow only one week I
will leave Aghdam, ‘next time, next week I will leave Fuzuli, next
week I will leave Kalbajar’ etc. and we will stop. So, this is a
very fair position, this is a position aimed at peace not at
war.
Correspondent: What about Armenia’s claims that Ankara
is militarily involved in this conflict with their planes
etc.?
President Ilham Aliyev: This is a false
information, it has no proofs, I already made statements about
that. Turkey is our brotherly country from the very first day of
Armenian attack, from the very 1st hour, Turkey expressed its full
support to Azerbaijan. My brother, president Erdogan many times
made very important statements. And yesterday speaking at the
opening session of the parliament he made another very important
statements that Turkey is next to Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan is not
alone. We feel the support we are very grateful to our Turkish
brothers and president, and other officials. But Turkey in no other
way is involved in the conflict. One of the Armenian fake news
which now is not any longer in the media, was that Turkish F-16
shot down Armenia’s SU-25. This is fake news. Where are the proofs?
No proofs. Every plane, which lands and takes off is in the
computer. Everybody can see what is happening. And I wonder why?
Minsk Group co-chair countries France, United States, Russia they
do not comment on that. They do not comment on this fake news, some
of them comment on other fake news that Azerbaijan with Turkey
invited terrorists here.
Correspondent: This is what I would like to ask Mr.
President Armenia also accuses Turkey for transferring Syrian
opposition fighters to Azerbaijan.
President Ilham Aliyev: This is fake news.
Absolutely. The same fake news as they said that Turkish F-16 shot
down the SU-25. The SU-25 had an accident I was informed, it hit
the mountain because of unexperienced pilot.
Correspondent: But they say that they have
evidence
President Ilham Aliyev: Let them show it. Where
is evidence? Not only Armenia, unfortunately President of France I
heard yesterday made a statement about that and he called me on the
27th in the evening and I said it is wrong, it is false. And he
made the statements without any evidence. Let him give us evidence.
Let him give us proofs. Only words? We can also say many words. But
we don’t. We behave in a responsible way. There is not a single
evidence of any foreign presence in Azerbaijan. What we do, we do
ourselves. We have capable army. We have enough people in our army,
we have enough people in our reserves. I announced a partial
mobilization, which will allow us to involve tens of thousands of
reservists. If necessary, so we don’t need it. Armenia needs it,
because Armenian population is declining. And it is only two
million people. Therefore, they themselves now recruit people from
Middle East and we have evidences and not only of Armenian origin.
And by the way, it doesn’t make any difference whether it is of
Armenian origin coming from Middle East or non-Armenian origin. If
anybody comes from outside to fight as a mercenary that should be
internationally addressed. So, it is this accusations that
absolutely groundless, and we reject them, and we demand the
evidences to be put on the table.
Correspondent: Will you also be presenting your evidence
on the foreign mercenaries that Armenia brings?
President Ilham Aliyev: We have already some
intelligence information and plus, just yesterday I was shown that
there are videos in the internet as the people from Middle East are
sitting together with Armenian soldiers and they have their
uniform, they have Armenian national flag, and they sit together
and discuss, you know it is without voice. But it is enough I
think. And they must be responsible for that.
Correspondent: So, could diplomacy ever work or is the
war only solution for you?
President Ilham Aliyev: I said already.
Diplomacy can work if Armenia will comply with the international
law, will start immediate withdrawal from part of the territories
on time table. And of course we need to restore territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan. By the way, when we were discussing the
issues on negotiation table before this government in Armenia came
to power, one of the first items was that the conflict must be
resolved on the basis of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. It
must be restored. That is what we demand and I think we have a
right to demand it.
Correspondent: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev,
thank you very much for talking to Al Jazeera.
President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you.