The President of Azerbaijan Republic Ilham Aliyev stated in an interview for “Nikkei” newspaper of Japan on October 21: “A diversification program of Azerbaijan’s economy is successfully implementing”.

The President of Azerbaijan Republic Ilham Aliyev highlighted in an interview for “Nikkei” newspaper of Japan on October 21 that the United States, Russia and France are three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group which has a mandate to facilitate, to find a solution to the conflict and it’s natural that our ministers meet in these three capitals. It is a continuation of the discussions on the peaceful settlement of the conflict. Armenian government unfortunately, the prospects for peaceful settlement are very remote. Very counter-productive and provocative statements and actions on behalf of Armenian leadership made actual negotiations senseless. Azerbaijan determining its destiny on the battlefield has eliminated status quo no longer. Azerbaijan punishes them in place, liberates territories, almost every day new cities and villages which have been liberated from Armenian occupation are announced. Therefore, Armenian government must be more reasonable, make a commitment about liberation of occupied territories and determine when it will be. This is the part of the basic principles which have been agreed between two countries with the facilitation of the Minsk Group. The occupied territories must be returned to Azerbaijan and our refugees and internally displaced persons must return to all the occupied territories. Azerbaijan will allow the creation of the second Armenian state on the territory of Azerbaijan. With respect to self-determination, Armenian people have already self-determinated themselves. They have an independent Armenian state. After the liberation of the occupied territories, the security and rights of Armenians who want to stay there will be fully ensured, as will the rights of other people in Azerbaijan. The second ceasefire was announced between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the initiative of Russian State. After the first attempt of ceasefire in less than 2 minutes, they attacked from the territory of Armenia with ballistic missile, second largest city of Azerbaijan – Ganja. It is a war crime and the Armenian government will be responsible for that. Second attempts to achieve ceasefire failed because two minutes after the time when ceasefire had to be efficient they violated the ceasefire. Armenia shelled more than 100 times on Tartar city in just one day. A ceasefire cannot be achieved unilaterally. Upon they violated ceasefire second time, our Army liberated the city of Zangilan, and many villages. International monitors and our peace-keeping forces are part of the basic principles. Azerbaijan and Armenia should agree on who will be those international observers, or peacekeepers. The co-chairs of the Minsk Group are permanent members of the UN Security Council. And the UN Security Council with participation of these countries and with the voting of these countries adopted 4 resolutions demanding complete and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijani territories. Turkey is already involved, from the legal point of view also as a member of the Minsk Group. Turkey is the only country which has a border with 3 Caucasian countries. No other country has a border with three of them. Turkey plays important role now not only in our region, but in a broader region and in the world. And without normalization of relations with Turkey and with Azerbaijan Armenia has no future. Turkish population is 83 million, Azerbaijani population is 10 million. Armenian population is less than two million. They should think how they are going to live here in 10 years, in 20 years, in 50 years if they don’t be reasonable, if they don’t put end to aggression. They cannot afford this aggression any longer. Armenia is not landlocked but they don’t have border with Turkey, because of aggression against Azerbaijan, and because of territorial claims against Turkey. Their constitution they have territorial claims against Turkey. It is craziness to have claims to such a powerful country as Turkey. But that’s substance of their ideology. All their mythology about their brave army, were a kind of fake. Representatives of different nationalities are now fighting on Armenian side. Among those who have been eliminated on the battlefield, there are people with Lebanese passport, with Canadian passport. It is a proof that Armenia recruited mercenaries and fighters from the Middle East. Azerbaijan doesn’t need any foreign fighters. Azerbaijan has enough people, enough soldiers and officers in our regular army. President Ilham Aliyev noted economic growth of Azerbaijan in an interview: “We have agenda of diversification of our economy, and this process is successfully continuing. Even this year, though our GDP is going down not very seriously, it’s less than 4% decline so far. In comparison with some other countries it’s not a bad result but with respect to non-oil related industry we have a growth. Industrial development, business opportunities, tourism, of course was rapidly growing before the pandemic. The liberation of the territories will stimulate agricultural development. We already started to plan our future agricultural development. Azerbaijan carries out international energy projects according to the chart. Japanese companies, they are very active here in the area of energy, with the loans from Japanese banks we built two big power stations, in Baku. By the way, export electric energy also, and we want to see Japanese companies in the area of renewable energy, which is now one of the priorities. It’s a matter of maybe some additional weeks for official opening of TAP. Everything is ready, the historical pipeline from Baku to Europe have been completed. With respect to other pipelines which we have and particular oil and gas pipelines on the territory of Azerbaijan during all these years since 2006, when Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan was commissioned, we didn’t have any accident. Our pipelines on our territory are duly protected. But of course we heard threats from official Armenian representatives that they will attack our pipelines, they will attack Sangachal terminal which is an important terminal for oil and gas transportation, but this is also part of their terrorist nature”. The democratic development in the country is going in a positive direction. Absolute majority of political parties strongly support the policy of Commander-in-Chief on return of the occupied territories. Freedom of political activity, media freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, religious freedom was provided. So, there are no restrictions on that. We have free internet. Some restrictions on the social networking systems are temporary. As soon as this active phase of clashes stops, all these restrictions will be lifted. Today, people always stand with President who values his nation, and their Army. And this unity will soon reflect on the restoration, re-blossoming and development of all liberated lands of Azerbaijan. Long live developing Azerbaijani State! Glory to the Azerbaijani Army! Karabakh is ours! Karabakh is Azerbaijan!