President Ilham Aliyev’s speech at the International forum titled "Karabakh: Back Home After 30 Years. Accomplishments and Challenges", held at ADA University on Wednesday, has been in the focus of the Georgian media.
The articles, published by “newsday.ge”, “interpress.ge”, “qafqazturk.com”, “24news.ge”, “realnews.ge” and “1tv.ge” TV Channels in Azerbaijani and Georgian languages, featured remarks made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the Forum.
The articles quoted President Ilham Aliyev as saying: “Georgia and Azerbaijan are close partners. And of course, our partnership is much broader than energy cooperation. Though, this cooperation allowed us to present ourselves in Europe as a consolidated team of strategic importance.”
The articles draw readers’ attention to the Azerbaijani President’s remarks regarding Georgia's aspirations to become a member of EU, saying “We can understand it and wish Georgia success and congratulate our Georgian friends with this new developments and the status, which they got.”
The articles also quoted President Ilham Aliyev as saying: “Actually, the conflict was resolved three years ago, when we liberated a big part of the occupied territories. Restoration of our sovereignty was just a matter of time. It was clear that at that time, with the geographical situation, the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh republic, which has not been recognized even by Armenia, has no chance to survive as so-called independent quasi-state. They had two chances: either to integrate with the rest of Azerbaijan or to go to history. So, I clearly realized that at that time. One of the reasons why we were not in a hurry was that I clearly realized that, okay, in a five-year time we will achieve what we want. So, the anti-terror operation was not planned by us in November 2020. That's what I can say very openly. So, the war as a facilitator to peace. I think it clearly proves that it is possible.”
“Another thing is with respect to the formal peace, and I think that you mentioned particularly that peace agreement. I think it's also must be analyzed by international experts that a country, which suffered the thirty years of occupation, devastation, total destruction of its territory, ethnic cleansing and genocide, right after the liberation by itself, not by international mediators, offered peace. So, it was us, who offered peace to Armenia,” the head of state underlined.
