President Ilham Aliyev's messages from Shusha Successes, tasks, challenges

The second anniversary of the Victory. The anniversary of our pride. However, in today's fragile world, with ongoing wars, and the unstable situation in previously calm countries, it is not the right time to rest on well-earned laurels. Every day brings new challenges, and not always the most pleasant ones. On November 8 in Shusha, President Aliyev spoke about them in front of the military.

The speech of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief not only drew a line under the results of two years after the Victory but also defined the new tasks and vector of development of the country. In doing so, the head of state did not try to conceal from the people certain problems of post-war development caused by the attempts of external forces to play down the results of our Victory, to force us to abandon its fruits. Aliyev in fact openly spoke about those regional powers that are trying to put sticks in the wheels of our development, rattling rusty weapons at the borders.

But first things first. At the beginning of his speech Ilham Aliyev emphasized the most important milestones on the path that led to the Victory, and above all, the unity of power, the state, and the people, strong morale, and patriotism. Recalling the difficult years of the early 90s and the depression of the people after the failure of the First Karabakh war, he noted that during the occupation the official propaganda of Armenia and media resources of its patrons tried to impose the idea that Azerbaijan would never be able to restore its territorial integrity by military means to the whole world, including the Azerbaijani people.

"It would be enough to look at the speeches of representatives of international organizations and officials of countries dealing with this issue. They have said so many times that there is no military solution to this war, to this conflict. First of all, they tried to convince us of that. Secondly, they tried to prevent us from resolving the issue by military means. Of course, we also tried to resolve this issue peacefully, but resolve it. But we saw that the tactic of negotiations was leading to the issue being frozen, and, of course, we could never agree to that.

Finally, the people of Azerbaijan united as a fist and fulfilled their historic mission. The road to war has taken many directions. First of all, we had to equip our army with the necessary weapons and hardware ourselves. A strong economy was also necessary for this. When Azerbaijan regained independence, our financial and economic situation was extremely difficult. Therefore, building a strong economy was considered an important factor in winning the war, and we did that," the head of the state said, thus stressing two important points.

The first one is that they tried to break us morally as a people, to deceive us by endless imitation of negotiations and drag them out infinitely. However, Azerbaijan did not follow the lead of those external manipulators but realized that rescue drowning is the handiwork of drowning.

The second is directing efforts toward developing the economic foundation for future military and political successes, in the name of Victory. The fact that now we are restoring liberated territories, where everything was absolutely ruined, destroyed, or stolen by Armenians, once again shows Azerbaijan's economic sustainability. No one helps us financially, no one gives us multi-billion-dollar aid packages, like in Ukraine, Azerbaijan implements all projects through its own efforts.

The path to November 8, 2020, was not easy in political terms, either. Since the mid-90s, Azerbaijan has been trying to take its rightful place on the political map of the world. And this has not been easy - the Armenian lobby has been on alert, actively pushing the Christian factor as well, seeking to create an image in the world, including in the media they control, of a small Armenia suffering from its neighbours, which causes pity. These myths were difficult to debunk, but Baku succeeded. It was not immediate or even complete, but Azerbaijan's vector in the international arena was clearly identified. As a result of intensive foreign policy work, resolutions supporting Azerbaijan's position were adopted by leading international organizations such as the UN, OSCE, EU, Non-Aligned Movement, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and Council of Europe.

In his speech, Ilham Aliyev also paid attention to the issue of army-building and explained why, even two years after the end of the war, large funds are allocated for it. "Azerbaijan’s state budget for the next year has reached a record high, including the funds allocated for military purposes. One may wonder why. After all, the war is over and two years have passed. The answer is very simple. Revanchist forces are rising in Armenia. Forces and circles reluctant to come to terms with the results of the war are emerging in Armenia. Armenia does not fully comply with the 10 November 2020 Statement. It has yet to fully withdraw its armed forces from Karabakh, it has yet to make the Zangazur corridor available to us. Of course, we have to be prepared and we are. I can say that our Armed Forces have grown even stronger in the last two years," the head of the state stated.

It is hard to disagree here - the patriotic war showed how the efforts and resources invested at the right time brought the required result. But, even after the Victory, it is still too early to relax, as President Aliyev pointed out.

The unity of the people, the long-standing internal stability, and the security of the country were also important factors in the Victory. The President drew attention to this in his speech: "Many countries are struggling with domestic problems, many countries are facing internal crises, mutual distrust, disruption of public order, a gap between the people and the government. What do we see here in Azerbaijan – domestic stability, national unity, national solidarity, and unity between the people and the government. This is a great result of our policy." Indeed, we all saw how during the 44-day war the representatives of various professions, religions, nationalities, social classes, and natives of various regions and cities fought shoulder to shoulder, and no one made any distinction, they all contributed to the common Victory! The long-standing efforts of the Armenian intelligence services to exploit the factor of ethnic diversity in Azerbaijan to divide our society were doomed to failure.

A remarkable moment in Ilham Aliyev's speech was the mention of the fact that Karabakh was liberated mainly by those young people who had never seen these districts before their occupation by Armenians. It is not an easy task to motivate and inspire young people to liberate what was lost nearly three decades ago, as emotional ties, unfortunately, weaken with time - even to their own land. But our country succeeded.

President also sent a message from Shusha to those countries that continue to support Armenian revanchism. "Our army has shown heroism, professionalism, and selflessness. If necessary, we will show it again, we will get what we want. Everyone knows it, and so should those who conduct military exercises on our border in support of Armenia. No one can intimidate us. Armenia must not artificially linger, must not wait for some miracle that someone will come and fight in its place. No one will come and fight instead of them, and if they do, they will see the Azerbaijani Army in front of them again," Ilham Aliyev said.

With this, he not only praised the combat effectiveness of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan but also unequivocally warned those who, in pursuit of their goals, decided to help Armenia in its dreams of revenge. We are talking, of course, about Iran, a pseudo-Islamic republic, which, completely forgetting about Muslim brotherhood and turning a blind eye to the mosques of Karabakh, Zangazur, and Iravan destroyed by Armenians, is trying "to be more Catholic than the Pope", defending Armenian expansionism.

Ilham Aliyev did not pass over to the other, frankly speaking, painful for the Azerbaijani society question of Russian peacekeepers` presence on our soil. Whereas after the war their stay was justified by humanitarian issues and the prevention of possible conflicts, the past two years have, alas, shown the very ambiguous performance of their direct functions by the RPC. The peacekeeping forces let weapons, ammunition, enemy soldiers as well as odious Armenian and foreign politicians and various political speculators who oppose Azerbaijani statehood in their area of temporary responsibility through the Lachin road. Also, the RPC does not rush Armenian armed formations to withdraw from Karabakh, i.e. it actually patronizes them. In this case, a reasonable question arises: is the RPC needed in 3 years? And at this point, Aliyev clearly outlined Azerbaijan's position: "The Russian peacekeepers are deployed there temporarily, the statement dated November 10, 2020, specifies the term of their stay, and if they [Armenians - Auth. Comm.] are counting on someone, and they will again face a tragedy." These words clearly show that after 2025 there will be no need for Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh, the ethnic Armenian population of the region are our citizens, and Azerbaijan itself will solve all issues arising with them...

Once again I would like to emphasize that in his speech the head of state did not conceal existing threats, nor did he embellish things, but urged us to be ready for them. He warned, however, that the Azerbaijani army was ready to teach another lesson to those who had unhealthy intentions for the territorial integrity and statehood of Azerbaijan: "Armenia should not forget the lessons of the Second Karabakh war. They should remember that playing with fire will cost them dearly. If anyone there, be it the government, the opposition, or some element sent or trained from abroad, wants to have some bad intentions against us again, they will see our fist again. The history of the last two years has shown this clearly. Even this year, the Farrukh operation, the Revenge operation, and the September 13-14 events on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border – all these should serve as another lesson for Armenia. We have taught them this lesson, and we hope that they finally understand it, bend their necks and deal with their internal affairs, not set their sights on our lands, not set their sights on Karabakh."

Here, Yerevan should think hard about these words of the President of Azerbaijan: if you want to send the Armenian youth to die for foreign interests again, you will join long rows of fresh graves of "Yerablur". Our rebuff during the Armenian provocation in September showed that the Azerbaijani Army has strong arguments to respond to any attack.

And of course, Ilham Aliyev's most important message was that no one can talk to Azerbaijan in the language of ultimatums. This is very important, as such attempts do take place, of which the president himself said openly: "Some foreign patrons of Armenia want to accuse us of something. I have answered them as well. If they keep on talking about something, I will answer them again. This will not stop me. We are not afraid of anyone."

These words are significant. They once again say to Armenia and its patrons, including those who have a rooster as a national symbol - we are not ready to tolerate the violation of our rights, we do not need anything extra, but we are not going to give up ours either. Azerbaijan will be uncompromising in protecting its national interests.

Obviously, there are new challenges ahead of us. Aliyev's whole speech shows that Azerbaijan is ready for these challenges: its economy, army, and morals are on the rise. Aliyev called on the Azerbaijani people to be even more united, vigilant, and ready to fight to protect their achievements. What is happening in the world shows that agreements and promises are sometimes very fragile and do not protect entire countries and nations from large-scale tragedies, when people become hostages of political games. In conclusion, I would like to quote the words of Winston Churchill in his address to the nation in the House of Lords during the Second World War: "I offer you only blood, toil, tears, and sweat. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs — Victory in spite of all terrors — Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival..."