President Aliyev: Azerbaijan ready to communicate with Karabakh Armenians

President Ilham Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan is ready to to start practical communications with representatives of Armenian community in Karabakh.

Aliyev made the remarks at a plenary session on “Moving Mountains? Building Security in the South Caucasus”, which was held as part of the Munich Security Conference on February 18.

Caliber.Az presents the speech of the president:

"As far as we understand in our communications with our American partners and partners from European Union, and also, as far as I understood from today’s trilateral meeting with Prime Minister Pashinyan, which was organized by Secretary Blinken, we have a common understanding that there should be a two-track approach to the situation in the region. First, Azerbaijan-Armenia peace talks track. Second, Azerbaijan’s communications with the Armenian population in Karabakh.

Just for your information, the word Nagorno-Karabakh is no longer valid. This is actually the Russian word. Nagorno means mountainous. And in Azerbaijan, there is not such an administrative unit like Nagorno-Karabakh. Therefore, of course, I would like to ask our partners to respect the sovereignty and the constitution of Azerbaijan. There is a Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, where there is an Armenian population.

So, this a two-track solution actually separates our talks with Armenia from our internal issues, like our communications with Armenians in Karabakh. Also, it was agreed with our international partners that there will be discussions on the rights and securities of the Armenian minority in Karabakh.

We are ready to do it but with those representatives of the Armenian community, who were born and who lived in Karabakh throughout their lives. But not with the person who was exported from Russia to have the leading position in Karabakh. Maybe “exported” is not the right word. I would probably prefer the word “smuggled into”. Because nobody knows how he emerged in Karabakh and how he is trying and achieving to go back to Yerevan and from there to Moscow and then back to Yerevan and then to Karabakh.

Only this fact demonstrates that there is no blockade. The second fact which demonstrates that there is no blockade is that since 12th December until today, when our activists from the civil society came to the checkpoint, there have been more than 2500 vehicles, including trucks of the Russian peacekeepers and the representatives of the Red Cross. Almost 100 medical patients from Karabakh were taken by the Red Cross to Armenia for treatment.

So, how can we call it a blockade when there is an open road? If Armenians in Karabakh try to use this road, I am sure no one will stop them. So, this is important to understand the current situation and also, in order to properly evaluate the current situation, we need to go back a little bit to the history.

For almost 30 years our lands were under Armenian occupation. Prime Minister Garibashvili mentioned that in 2008 after the Russian-Georgian war there were no sanctions imposed on Russia. But I also can say that Armenia occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijan’s territory, violated international law, did not comply with the UN Security Council resolutions for 27 years and no sanctions were imposed on them.

We always were asking for sanctions on Armenia to be imposed to avoid the war. We were waiting for the Minsk Group to deliver result; we were waiting for the Security Council of the UN to respect their resolutions. But we saw that there was no movement and there was a common understanding that this conflict was frozen. So, we proved that it was not frozen. We had to fight, we had to sacrifice 3000 lives in order to restore our dignity, our territorial integrity and justice, and implement the UN Security Council resolutions.

Therefore, we cannot take out of the context today’s situation in Karabakh or our communications with the Armenian community there and just forget about the 30 years of occupation, forget about the territory, equal to the territory of Lebanon, which is totally in ruins. And that was done not by aliens, that was done by our neighbors, who came, occupied our land, made a million Azerbaijanis homeless, destroyed 65 out 67 mosques, desecrated them, and when we kicked them out, they now plea for justice. They accuse us of occupation. Those who occupied us for 30 years.

Also, one thing should not be forgotten that the trilateral declaration of November 2020, which the prime minister refers to, actually, de facto is a capitulation act by Armenia. We fought the war and the results of the war have been accepted by the international community and by the Armenian society. And the best indicator to that was a new mandate, which Armenian population gave to the prime minister and that was a mandate for peace.

Therefore, we need to look to the future. And I think that if we look to the future and today, as we discussed just prior to the session, is a historical day, because for the first time three leaders get together as the independent countries. There were cases like that during the Soviet times. And we should not miss this opportunity.

Karabakh Armenians are Azerbaijani citizens, a minority. Azerbaijan is a multi-ethnic country and all minorities in Azerbaijan enjoy same rights and privileges, including cultural, linguistic, security and any other. We are ready to start practical communications with representatives of Armenian community in Karabakh and today, in front of Secretary Blinken, I told my Armenian colleague about that. But we can do it only when the Russian citizen, the criminal oligarch, the person who was involved in money laundering in Europe – Vardanyan is out of our territory".

In addition, Aliyev noted that a number of platforms exist to discuss matters pertaining to the normalisation of ties between Azerbaijan and Armenia when responding to a GLOBSEC member's question on the function of international mediators in the process.

"We have several platforms to address issues related to normalisation of Azerbaijan-Armenia relationship. One of them is so-called Brussels format and yesterday, during the meeting with President of European Council Mr. Charles Michel, we once again reconfirmed our commitment to the Brussels process. Today, during the trilateral meeting, hosted by Secretary Blinken, we also discussed the Brussels process as a trilateral format. And I think, there is a common understanding that this is only a trilateral [format]: EU, Azerbaijan and Armenia. There is a certain legacy from the so-called former Minsk Group, which is already retired and actually does not exist, maybe exists only on the paper.

Therefore, the former co-chairs of the Minsk Group, which actually did not deliver any result for 28 years, they still have some leverage on the situation. Therefore, we have a platform, which is hosted by the United States, Russia and by European Union, but no longer by France because of one-sided, pro-Armenian position of the French government. It is clear that when you are a mediator you cannot take sides and you cannot demonstrate that you take sides.

So, I think, this is the answer to your question. Above of that I want to say that whoever will help both countries to come to an agreement, of course, will have the champion’s medal.

But with respect to the peace talks, you know, we can understand this position, but judging from our experience I can tell you that peace talks sometimes last too long. We had peace talks for 28 years. Can you imagine from 1992 until 2020? And if we did not resolve the Karabakh conflict on the battlefield these peace talks would have continued for 28 years more.

It was absolutely acceptable to Armenia, because they wanted to seal the situation, to keep our lands under occupation forever. It was acceptable for Armenia’s friends in different parts of the world. But it was not acceptable to us and we were preparing, we were mobilizing our efforts, we were growing a new generation. The generation, which came and liberated the lands, which they had never seen. Because they were young, they were even not born when Armenia occupied our lands.

Therefore, peace talks, yes, I am not against but you have to restore justice by force and this is your legitimate right. This a right given to you by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and we use that right and we fought on our territory. Our war was a war of liberation and that is why it was a just war. Our war was not a war of occupation. That is why we did not have a single one from our army, who left the battlefield. For 44 days, when our cities and villages were shelled by Iskander missiles, no one left the battlefield. In Armenia were 11,000 deserters. Why? Not because they were losing on the battlefield. Because their war was an occupation war. There was no motivation for people who were born in Armenia to go to Azerbaijan and to fight for the land, which does not belong to them.

What we have seen as one of the results of our liberation war, the main factor is a motivation. Weapons, tactics are important, planning is very important but motivation is number one and you cannot conquer the people, who want liberty. They can wait, like we waited for 28 years but one day they come to their land, they kick out the aggressor and they put their flag on top of all our historical buildings".