Azerbaijani Pres. Aliyev: "We defeated Kocharyan, Sargsyan's army – not Pashinyan's"

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke at a virtual meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on December 18, devoted most of his speech to the second Karabakh war.

“The results of the war are known. Azerbaijan won a victory over the occupying country, which for many years kept under occupation large territories of our land, internationally recognized territories. As a result of the war, according to our information, more than 80 percent of the potential of the Armenian armed forces was destroyed,” Aliyev said.

• Armenia Continues to Give Territories to Azerbaijan? Protest in the border area
• “Russia must be handled with extreme caution” – comment from Baku

Aliyev stressed that over 44 days of the conflict, 94 civilians of Azerbaijan were killed, including 11 children, more than 400 civilians were injured, more than 5,000 houses were either completely destroyed or seriously damaged.

Then Aliyev touched upon the topic of signing the trilateral truce agreement on December 10.

“Yesterday [Russian President] Vladimir Vladimirovich once again pointed out in his interview to the media that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. This is not the first such statement. I think this is a very important statement. And it is important for those revanchist forces in Armenia that are trying to revise the conditions of the November 10 statement,” Aliyev said.

“I would also like to speak about the peacekeeping mission of the Russian Federation, which is also part of the statement. It is being implemented very successfully and is in constant contact with the relevant structures of the Republic of Azerbaijan. For almost a month and a half since the signing of the statement, there has been only one incident of ceasefire violation, and, according to our information, this was provoked by groups of so-called militias, essentially militants, who were not under the control of the Armenian authorities, who dug themselves into the rear of the Azerbaijani army. And literally within one day the incident was settled, the cease-fire regime is maintained, and I think that every day it will be stronger and stronger,” Aliyev said.

He also noted that work is underway to create a Russian-Turkish monitoring center in the Agdam region, which will monitor the situation.

Referring to the situation in Armenia after the war, Aliyev noted: “The situation in Armenia is very tense now. I will not comment on anything further, taking into account the fact that the Prime Minister of Armenia does not participate in our meeting…The only thing I would like to say, having absolutely no intention of somehow interfering in the internal political processes in Armenia, is that the army that was defeated is not Pashinyan’s army, it is the army that Kocharyan and Sargsyan created over 20 years … Therefore, those who are now trying to use the situation for their own political purposes and attack Pashinyan, they must understand that this is not his army. He would not have had time to create it and practically – yes, maybe he did not do what had to be done, but for 20 years this army was created by Kocharyan and Sargsyan, and we defeated their army.”