Countries arming Armenia will be responsible for ‘all future events,’ warns Azerbaijani president

ISTANBUL

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday warned that countries that are sending arms to neighboring Armenia will be responsible for “all future events.”

“Those arming Armenia should know that they will be directly responsible for all future events. Naturally, official territorial claims (by Armenia) against us should be stopped, their constitution should be amended, and the Minsk Group should be abolished,” Aliyev said in an address to the country’s parliament.

Highlighting that Baku has been able to make the world confirm its victory in the Second Karabakh War in the fall of 2022 and in its operation in the region last September, Aliyev argued that there are “countries and circles” that do not want to accept the outcome of the war and the operation.

Aliyev said that these “circles” are preparing new plans against Azerbaijan directed at the country with the aim that “someday if Azerbaijan stumbles, weakens, these ugly actions against us will start again.”

“The Karabakh conflict has been resolved, completely and once and for all. The official circles of Armenia seem to admit this with their statements. But at the same time, despite all our insistences, keeping the Minsk Group formally can only serve one purpose, that territorial claims against us will arise again,” he further said.

Aliyev went on to say that the country’s primary task is to increase Azerbaijan’s military strength due to these developments. “Armenia and any country behind it should know that it will not be possible to talk to us with the language of blackmail and ultimatum. We are ready, able and always ready to give any answer."

He said that Azerbaijan is strengthening its border because “any provocation from Armenia can be expected at any moment,” pointing to Yerevan’s increased arms procurement and its military exercises with foreign countries.

“The plans of some Western countries to turn Armenia against us are obvious. Of course, they are not interested in the Armenian people. The Armenian people are just a tool for them, a tool to keep Azerbaijan under constant pressure, use the territory of Armenia to create sources of threat for Azerbaijan and other neighbors of Armenia, and thus ensure their own interests,” he said.

- Normalization with Armenia

Aliyev also touched on Azerbaijan’s ongoing normalization process with Armenia, accusing Yerevan of delaying the signing of a peace agreement between the two countries.

“Until today, since our first draft was sent to Armenia, there have been 10 exchanges of comments and each time certain provisions were agreed, that is, there was progress in this work … As the months passed, we naturally expected that Armenia would give us its comments more promptly and flexibly. But we saw the exact opposite,” Aliyev said.

Underlining that Azerbaijan waited for 70 days until it received the most recent draft of the peace agreement from Armenia, Aliyev said that all non-agreed provisions were removed from the recent draft sent by Yerevan, which he described as a “primitive and inadequate step.”

“Without them (provisions), the peace agreement will be incomplete. Therefore, such an insincere attitude naturally makes us think,” he said.

He said these factors show Armenia wants to “buy time and use this time to build military potential with the support of foreign patrons.”

Aliyev also reiterated his country’s rejection of mediators being involved in the talks between Baku and Yerevan, saying that Armenia should also not rely on the involvement of third parties in their negotiations.

Armenia has not yet commented on Aliyev's remarks.

Relations between Baku and Yerevan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a 44-day war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and the demarcation of their border.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh following an "anti-terrorist operation" after which separatist forces in the region surrendered.