“The goal of the Minsk Group co-chairs was to freeze the conflict, to keep it forever, and to use it as leverage on both countries,” President Ilham Aliyev said at the opening ceremony of the 13th Global Baku Forum, APA reports.
"And what is happening now in the world — these hotspots emerging, existing protracted conflicts — this is a threat to the international behavioral structure. It's a threat to international law when international law and norms are not respected, when the territorial integrity of countries is violated, and when resolutions of international organizations are ignored.
So this unique experience of the country, which suffered occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, restored its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and dignity by force, and then offered peace to a defeated then enemy, I think is something which we can share with the international community. As I also said many times, we achieved peace with Armenia not only on paper, though the peace deal was initialed and we adopted a joint declaration seven months ago, but we have peace on the ground. We have a quiet situation on our border — no more shootings, no more victims, no more casualties.
We lifted all the restrictions on transporting goods to Armenia from different destinations. We even started trade with Armenia. We started to export critical oil products for them, thus demonstrating that we are committed to peace — not just long lasting, but peace forever. This is our strategy and our policy and once again demonstrates that Azerbaijan is a peaceful country. And those who were accusing us during the Second Garabagh War and then the anti-terror operation were either short-sighted or biased, because what we did was in line with international law, and we used force to achieve peace, and today we demonstrate it.
Sometimes you have to do it, especially when you are absolutely sure that you are right; you have to ignore those who oppose you, those who want to damage your interests. And also one thing which I think we can share with those who are at war.
We achieved peace with Armenia when we insisted — I mean Azerbaijan — and achieved that there would be no mediators. Twenty-eight years of so-called Minsk Group mediation was a disaster. The goal of the co-chairs was to freeze the conflict, to keep it forever, and to use it as leverage on both countries. So we decided that we needed to get rid of this so-called mediation, and as soon as we started to engage bilaterally — without any third party — we achieved peace. So this is experience, and this is not just a theory; this is what we lived through and what we see now. Therefore, I think this issue definitely will be taken into account while trying to handle existing conflicts," the head of state noted.
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