Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, together with his wife Mehriban, made an excursion to the occupied Armenian historical region of Kovsakan, renamed Zangilan by Azerbaijanis.
As usual, the Azerbaijani leader made a number of statements.
“Our independence was not strong either at the beginning or at the end of the 20th century. Therefore, our people faced great tragedies. Both Eastern Zangezur and Karabakh were occupied. The then authorities could not protect our lands. However, today our independence is strong, and as a result, we won a victory in the second Karabakh war, a historic victory. As a result, we brought the enemy to its knees, and today we are here,” Aliyev said.
According to him, “if we were not independent, that is, in the truest sense of the word, we would not be able to put an end to the Armenian occupation. What were the factors that led to this occupation – of course, external ones.
“Today, the strength factor is in the foreground. I talked about this ten years ago. All my speeches are in the press. I said that international law does not work. We should not deceive ourselves, we should be stronger, gather our strength. If necessary, drive the enemy from our lands by force. I spoke about it and did it,” the Azerbaijani president continued to speak.
Emphasizing that the factor of force will continue to dominate the world, the President of Azerbaijan he noted: “Recent history has also shown this. Therefore, we must continue to be strong, and we are becoming strong. Today our economic indicators are very positive. I can say that this year one of the rapidly developing countries on a global scale is Azerbaijan.
"We are increasing our military strength. After the war, new armed formations were created, new equipment is being purchased, and we will continue to do this. Because if we are not strong, we will not be able to live as we want. We want to live freely. We want no one to interfere in our affairs from now on. There is no need for this. We have built such a wonderful state that today many can envy," he said.