Months after the liberation of the sovereign territory of Karabakh, the Azerbaijani president on Wednesday said his country seeks strong assurances that archrival Armenia will not try to seek "revenge" or attempt to reoccupy land in the region.
"We need firm, verified guarantees that there will be no attempt at revanchism in Armenia. Why we need it, because we know what's happening in Armenia, and also we know that Armenia has very bad advisers in some European capitals," Ilham Aliyev said during an international forum in the capital Baku.
Saying that he need not mention the capitals he is referring to, as it is obvious, Aliyev argued Armenia has so far received "provocative advice" but that in the future it might even get "destructive advice."
Aliyev added that peace for Baku signifies guarantees that there will be no more wars between the two countries, that Armenia "totally agrees" with the current situation in the Southern Caucasus region, and that Yerevan means what it says about Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.
He also called on Armenia to "forget about the former ‘Nagorno-Karabakh republic'" and be constructive in delimitation talks between the neighbors.
The current Armenian government's ideology, which he said contests Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, remained the same despite Baku's victory in the 2020 Karabakh War, Aliyev pointed out.
He added that the government also understands Azerbaijan will "crush them again no matter who stands behind them" if they continue to do so, in contrast to the Armenian opposition.
Peace deal
On a prospective peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Aliyev said that the agreement being discussed is some 6-7 pages and is made up of less than 20 articles.
The last remarks Baku sent on the document were on Sept. 11 and they got a response from Yerevan on Nov. 21, he said.
"For such a small document, Armenia needed 70 days ... to respond to us. And they responded only after Azerbaijan's foreign minister publicly disclosed that ... So this shows that the side delaying the process isn't Azerbaijan, it is Armenia. Why they delay it, I don't know ... I can only suspect," he added.
He went on to say that the document is currently being evaluated by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, and that once they comment on it, a meeting of the countries' top diplomats will be "appropriate."
Aliyev also thinks they should not be preoccupied with the formal side of the peace deal based on cases such as Russia-Japanese relations, where he said the formal peace agreement was "not an obstacle for normal interaction."
Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military illegally occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
Azerbaijan liberated most of the region during the war in the fall of 2020, which ended with a Russian-brokered peace agreement, opening the door to normalization.
This September, the Azerbaijani army initiated a counterterrorism operation in Karabakh to establish constitutional order, after which illegal separatist forces in the region surrendered.