On October 2, 2020, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was interviewed by Al Jazeera TV channel. Correspondent: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, thank you for talking to Al Jazeera. President Ilham Aliyev: Very glad to see you.
Correspondent: It’s been two decades since the present conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has begun and you’ve been through lots of ups and downs but no peace has been succeeded so far. Why has this conflict been dragging for so long? President Ilham Aliyev: The main reason is that Armenia doesn’t want peace.
They want to keep our lands under occupation forever. They don’t want to change the status quo and this is a reason why it lasted so long. Because otherwise, if Armenia demonstrated a good will and acted in compliance with the resolutions of main international organizations the conflict would have been resolved many years ago.
Because back in 1993, when Armenia occupied part of our territories UN security council adopted four resolutions demanding immediate, full and unconditional withdrawal of their troops from our territories. But these resolutions remain on paper. Minsk group which was created in order to facilitate, to find the solution, already is in activity for 28 years, and also without any results.
Therefore, the main reason is they said the position of Armenia, the second reason is that lack of insistence from the side of the mediators and lack of pressure on Armenia to start demanding resolutions of United Nations Security Council. On many occasions, I raised this issue and was saying that international sanctions must be imposed on Armenia to force them to comply with resolutions and to start liberation of our territories but my appeals were not answered properly, and now what is happening is a result of Armenia’s destructive policy. Correspondent: So, you say Azerbaijan doesn’t have the international support that it deserves based on the international legal concerns?
President Ilham Aliyev: From point of view of international law norms and decisions and resolutions of international organizations, we have very broad support. As I already mentioned UN Security Council resolutions which is resolutions of the highest international body adopted resolutions asking Armenia or demanding Armenia to withdraw their troops. The General Assembly of United Nations did the same, other international organizations, like Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Non-Aligned Movement, European Parliament and others did the same but it is not enough, so we have a legal framework for the resolution.
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