Military solution to be sought if peace talks fail: Aliyev
BAKU - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Tuesday that if talks with Armenia on settling the Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict are disrupted, a military solution to the long-standing dispute will come to the agenda.
"We have leveraged all efforts for strengthening Azerbaijan’s military potential and concentrated all our financial resources to liberate our lands from the invaders," President Aliyev told the opening of the State Border Service Academy in Baku. "Azerbaijan’s army and its military potential allow to do this today."
Aliyev said Baku is looking to settle the conflict in peace, through negotiations, but the opposing side is seeking to merely drag out time and disrupt peace talks.
Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war over the mountainous region of Nagorno Karabakh in the early 1990s which claimed some 30,000 lives. Armenia has been occupying over 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory since then, despite UN resolutions on unconditional pullout of its armed forces. One million Azerbaijanis have been displaced as a result of ethnic cleansing. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been fruitless so far.
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