AZERBAIJAN: PRESIDENT, ALL-OUT OFFENSIVE AGAINST ARMENIA

Agenzia Giornalistica Italia
Oct 13, 2008
Italy

(AGI) – Baku, Oct 13 – Two days before the presidential elections in
Azerbaijan, the leaving leader of State Ilham Aliyev launched a hard
verbal attack against eternal enemy Armenia, against which the former
Soviet Republic in the ’90s fought a bloody conflict for the control
of Nagorno Karabakh, the enclave with an Armenian majority, lost by
Baku in ’91. "As long as our territory remains occupied, we carry
out politics of all-out offensive against Armenia, on a political,
economic, military and logistic level" said Aliyev during a rally,
receiving a warm applause from his fellow countrymen. The two countries
signed a cease-fire in ’94 but have frozen diplomatic and commercial
relations since then, awaiting a decision on the disputed area on an
international level. The Azeri president is the son of Heydar Aliyev,
already in office in the Soviet era and died in 2003. He is favourite
in Wednesday’s elections, since the opposition forces have opted for
a boycott.