Aliyev announces peace to peoples The ball is in Yerevan’s court

“Following the anti-terror measures and their successful completion, Azerbaijan has restored its sovereignty,” Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev said confidently and calmly on this historical event during his address to the nation on the outcome of counter-terrorism measures in the Karabakh region.

This restraint is not accidental. It is the fruit of the painstaking and high-precision surgical work that the president, diplomats, army and the entire Azerbaijani society carried out over the past three years after the victory in the Patriotic War. It reflects the unbending confidence that the gray zone on the Azerbaijani territory should have been abolished. Unlike the liberation war of 2020, when the paradigm was broken and the almost thirty-year status quo was sent to hell, in the current counter-terrorism measures Baku has applied the final strokes to the canvas of its territorial integrity.

Ilham Aliyev began his speech by describing the events immediately preceding the start of the counter-terror measures. The explosions of Azerbaijani citizens on mines laid recently by the Armenian military, this outrageous crime became the last straw that overflowed Baku’s patience, the decisive trigger for the abolition of the criminal junta and the gray zone. The president highly appreciated the actions of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, their heroism, professionalism and high moral qualities. Aliyev emphasized the fact that all anti-terrorist actions were carried out with precision weapons and were directed only towards legitimate military targets.

Aliyev also shed light on some of the impressive military results of these measures.

“A significant part of the army was completely destroyed, which was illegally stationed by the Armenian state in Azerbaijani territories and has not yet been withdrawn, despite Armenia’s obligations,” said the Azerbaijani leader, announcing to the whole world the inglorious end of the junta.

However, the Azerbaijani leader in his address more focused on the future. And the main message in this part was addressed to both Azerbaijanis and Armenians.

“I am confident that the Armenian population living in Karabakh will soon see a turn for the better, because our intention is to build a life together on the basis of peace, mutual understanding and mutual respect. We have no problems with the Armenian people, we have no enmity,” Ilham Aliyev sent a message of peace.

Following this, the president invited the Armenian population of Karabakh to join the friendly family of peoples of Azerbaijan. It is no secret that for many years Armenian propaganda unsuccessfully tried to sow hostility among the peoples inhabiting our country. To prove that inter-ethnic and inter-confessional solidarity exists in Azerbaijan, Aliyev gave a very vivid and intelligible example.

“There has never been and will not be discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds in Azerbaijan, the Second Karabakh War showed this once again. Representatives of all nationalities, representatives of all ethnic groups, all faiths united into a single fist - for Azerbaijan, for dignity, for the Motherland!”

Despite all the emotionality of these words, they are strikingly devoid of notes of humiliation of the enemy, they contain the idea of the superiority of a multi-ethnic society over a mono-ethnic one, they contain a call to Armenians to reconsider their guidelines, change their optics, look at things from a different angle, and stop being captive to chauvinistic ideology.

Azerbaijan defeated the Armenian ideology, but Azerbaijan had no thought of humiliating the human dignity of the Armenian people. In the president’s speech there was also not a drop of hostility towards the leadership of Armenia and personally towards Prime Minister Pashinyan. And this despite the fact that the Armenian authorities did everything in their power to prevent the full restoration of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty. The essence of this undoubtedly wise approach of the Azerbaijani leader is that Baku proposes to forget the old, while fully understanding that Yerevan, in its adventurist policy, was guided not only by its own considerations, but also by instructions from abroad.

In his speech, Aliyev addressed the patrons of the failed Armenian expansionist project, in fact, the enemies of the Armenian people.

“The South Caucasus has been a place of strife, wars and bloody clashes for centuries. Enough!” Aliyev said, among other things. With this statement, he invited the Armenian society to deep reflection about its future, about its role in building a strong independent region of the South Caucasus, bound by common interests. Ilham Aliyev actually declared his determination to fight against attempts at neo-colonialism in the South Caucasus and invited all countries in the region to join this fight.

These theses should be taken in the context of Aliyev’s proposal to create a Caucasus Home expressed last October in Tbilisi. Thus, the speech of the Azerbaijani president was addressed to all the peoples of the South Caucasus.

Now that the Miatsum project has finally collapsed, Armenian propaganda will not be able to attribute Aliyev’s message to the desire to “bribe” the Armenians. We have no formal need for this. We achieved the defeat of the criminal junta and the elimination of the gray zone. And now there is hope that the Armenians on both sides of the still conditional border will listen to this historic, peace-loving and at the same time, unequivocal message from the Azerbaijani leader.

And so that someone does not confuse Baku’s peacefulness with a desire to rest on its laurels, Aliyev added: “But at the same time, I must say that those who look at us with disdain, covet our lands, cannot digest our successes, should never forget that the Iron Fist is in place and it will always be in place!”

So, Aliyev said everything. The page of war must be turned. The ball is now in Yerevan’s court.