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Qabil Ashirov

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Azerbaijan continues its successful foreign policy in the international arena. As a result of its unique independent foreign policy among the republics that left the Soviet Union, it achieved what other republics could not do.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan was the first republic after the Baltic republics to withdraw the Russian army from its territory. It should be especially noted that Azerbaijan is the only republic among the former Soviet republics that does not have bases of other countries on its territory. More importantly, among the other Soviet states, Azerbaijan relies neither on NATO nor CSTO to protect its sovereignty. Azerbaijan relies on its strong army, its population in unity and its farsighted President.

As is known, when the Soviet Union collapsed, some republics tried to implement an independent policy, and these republics faced separatism. One of those republics was Azerbaijan. However, thanks to the late President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev and his policy follower Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan was able to restore its territorial integrity in a short period of time. As a result of Baku's unique foreign policy, the evil intentions of the forces supporting separatism were foiled and Azerbaijan regained its territorial integrity.

With the 44-day war in 2020 and the anti-terrorist operation in 2023, all separatist elements in the country were eliminated. However, eight villages of Azerbaijan were still under the Armenian occupation. As is known, some of these villages are enclaves and some are not. Armenians resorted to different measures not to return these villages. But Baku was determined in this regard. Even an inch of the country's land cannot be given to anyone. President Ilham Aliyev raised the issue of returning the border villages back in 2020, and intensive work was constantly carried out in this direction. Today we see the logical conclusion of this process.

In the end, the Armenia could not withstand the determined position of Azerbaijan and agreed to return the non-enclave villages in Qazax district.

It is worth noting that this is another victory for Azerbaijan and President Ilham Aliyev. Besides, this victor is more important because Azerbaijan got this victory without a single shot fired, without any bloodshed.

This is the first step in the delimitation process, and it began precisely in the Qazax direction. Azerbaijan insisted on starting delimitation from this section of the border.

Foreign forces, including the EU and the USA, as well as a number of Western countries, tried to intervene in this process, but Azerbaijan prevented this. Azerbaijan and Armenia were able to find a common language and were able to resolve this issue themselves. Therefore, the further the Western imperialists are away from the Azerbaijani-Armenian process, the faster peace and prosperity will reign in the South Caucasus.

Propaganda from France and a number of other Western countries that Azerbaijan is allegedly planning an attack on Armenia has military goals on the territory of Armenia, or some fallacies proved to be nonsense.

From the very first days of its independence Azerbaijan never followed expansionist foreign policy. On the contrary Azerbaijan’s foreign policy is based on peace and prosperity. This is another step on the road leading to the eternal peace in the region.

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Qabil Ashirov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @g_Ashirov

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