Azernews.Az

By Vafa Ismayilova

President Ilham Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan will immediately halt the counter-offensive operation to liberate Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions if Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan makes a commitment about the Armenian troops' withdrawal from all occupied territories.

Aliyev made the remarks in an interview with BBC News on 6 November.

About 20 per cent of Azerbaijan's territory – including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions – has been under occupation for nearly three decades.

The Azerbaijani army has liberated four city centres, three settlements and over 220 villages, as well as some strategic heights since September 27.

“If Pashinyan tells today that yes, I accept basic principles and I will liberate part of Aghdam, Kalbajar, and Lachin in one week, or in two weeks, we will stop immediately,” President Ilham Aliyev said.

Aliyev explained that the basic principles on the peaceful conflict settlement envisaged the liberation of seven regions, then the return of Azerbaijani IDPs and refugees to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Aliyev added that the war would have stopped long ago and Azerbaijan would have already been at the negotiating table with Armenia if the latter accepted his above-mentioned proposal.

“We ask and we demand the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions which were adopted back in 1993, which demanded the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories. With respect to the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, they will continue to live there. They are our citizens,” Aliyev said.

The president reiterated that before the Karabakh war in 1990, some 40,000 Azerbaijanis lived in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“So, they [Armenians] expelled them all, and after that, committed ethnic cleansing, and then, announced independence,” the president said.

Aliyev mentioned that during the war of the 1990s, the Armenians killed thousands of Azerbaijani civilians. He said that 613 innocent people, among them 63 children and 106 women, were killed in the town of Khojaly only because they were Azerbaijanis.

The president absolutely ruled out the possibility of any ethnic cleansing against Armenian civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh in future.

“We are not Armenians. They committed ethnic cleansing against us… Thus, we have one million refugees as a result of the ethnic cleansing policy of Armenia. But we will not behave the same way, we will not take revenge… I said we will take revenge on the battlefield” Aliyev said.

The president stressed that Azerbaijanis and Armenians may peacefully co-exist in Nagorno-Karabakh as this is now the case in neighbouring Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and many other parts of the world.

“I think it is possible, because I, as a President, say today and said many times that we want to live side by side,” Aliyev said.

Aliyev pledged a better life for Azerbaijan’s Armenian citizens in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Speaking about the form of future governance in Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev said: “Our position is there must be a certain level of self-governance, like municipal governance or cultural autonomy for Armenians.”

The president said that compromises offered by Azerbaijan may not further be on the negotiating table if it gets back all occupied territories.

The president added that Azerbaijan will evaluate damages that Armenia had inflicted on its ecology, infrastructure, historical heritage, civilians and the state itself through international experts.

“After that, of course, there will be lawsuits… against the Armenian state, and we are already preparing for that,” the president said.

He added that at the initial stage, Azerbaijan plans to settle in Nagorno-Karabakh 7,000 to 10,000 civilians.

He added that 92 civilians were killed, 405 were wounded, almost 3000 houses either demolished or seriously damaged in Azerbaijan by the Pashinyan regime.

“Nobody is asking Pashinyan why he hits with ballistic missile Ganja. Why he killed 92 people, why they attack funeral in Tartar, why they use Smerch with cluster bombs to attack Barda, killing 21 persons, and injuring 70. No one asks him, where does he get weapons?” the president stressed.

Commenting on the possibility of Turkey’s involvement in operations in the future, Aliyev said that everything will depend on Armenia's and other countries’ behaviour.

“We asked all the countries, neighbouring countries…. to stay away from this conflict. We are fighting on our internationally recognized land... And I think that what is happening now will continue. So there will be no need for any kind of military involvement of Turkey. But, with Turkey, many years ago, we signed the document which provides also military support in case of aggression. So, with Turkey, we have more or less the same format legal basis like Armenia and Russia has. … If Azerbaijan sees that the Turkish military support is needed, then we will consider this option,” Aliyev stressed.

He added that at the current stage all Turkish and Israeli drones, also the Russian military equipment were used solely by the Azerbaijani servicemen during the operations.

“We don’t want to continue this war… We want to stop… He [Pashinyan] wants to use these ceasefire opportunities to regroup his forces, to mobilize more people... These are our lands. They have to give them back to us. If they don’t do it, as I said, we will go until the end,” Aliyev said.

Aliyev said that peace in the South Caucasus depended not only on Azerbaijan but Armenia as well.

“It is still not too late for them to be reasonable. It is still not too late for them to get more on the negotiation table. Because after we take control of other cities and villages, there will be nothing to talk about. So, they are losing time. And if they behave reasonably, we can work on some forms of self-governance [in Nagorno-Karabakh],” Aliyev said.

However, he ruled out any regional peace with Pashinyan’s participation.

“There must be a change of government in Armenia, reasonable people must come, those people which are not affiliated with bloodshed and military crimes. And then, I think, by joint actions, we can create a new format of cooperation in the Southern Caucasus among Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia which used to be in Soviet times,” he said.