Azernews.Az

By Aisha Jabbarova

President Ilham Aliyev said that Armenia’s destruction of Azerbaijan’s formerly occupied territories is beyond Baku’s worst expectations. He also said that this destruction was aimed at erasing Azerbaijan’s legacy in those territories.

Aliyev made the remarks while addressing the “New vision for South Caucasus: Post-conflict development and cooperation” conference held at ADA University on April 13.

“The destructions on the territories which we liberated are beyond all our worst expectations… They did it deliberately in order to erase the legacy of Azerbaijani culture in order to erase these territories from our memories, in order to change the origin of those lands. Therefore, we need to understand the feelings of Azerbaijani people and now when we returned to those lands and we see with our own eyes what the occupation of Armenian forces did to our historical monuments, religious monuments, to our cities and villages. Of course, this is a very important factor,” Aliyev said.

The president stressed that the destruction in Azerbaijan’s lands were done after the first Karabakh war stopped in 1994. He reminded that during the three decades of occupation, Armenia deprived foreigners of visiting Aghdam and Fuzuli to prevent them from witnessing the devastation and the hatred to Azerbaijanis.

Aliyev said that Azerbaijan is documenting destruction done by Armenia to sue Yerevan.

Commenting on the negotiations process before the war, Aliyev said that Armenia was not committed to it.

“I had a strong feeling during negotiations that Armenia doesn’t want a solution. They say they want but they do everything in order not to have this solution. What we have seen after we liberated the territories, those fortifications, those huge hundred millions of dollars investments in mining, in building this defense lines... We clearly understand that they were doing it in order to keep these lands under occupation forever.”

Furthermore, Aliyev said that though the ceasefire deal achieved in November is being maintained, there are a lot of questions about post-conflict development.

The president's speech aired aired via the president's official Facebook page and via the YouTube channel.

The conference was attended by representatives of world’s leading think tanks.

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