Experts continue to analyze the speech delivered by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev during his meeting with former internally displaced persons in Aghdam. The head of state addressed a wide range of important issues. Ilham Aliyev spoke about the revival of Karabakh, the tragic experience of war, and how international organizations that were supposedly meant to resolve the conflict in fact provided support to Armenia.
He also touched upon the fact that during the years of occupation Aghdam was subjected to urbicide, with Armenian occupiers erasing Azerbaijan’s historical and cultural heritage and effectively attempting to make the city uninhabitable. We would add that this makes today’s achievements in the revival and reconstruction of the formerly occupied territories all the more striking and significant.
During the meeting, the president articulated a valuable series of programmatic messages. Let us focus in detail on one of them. As Ilham Aliyev emphasized: “How can we forget the occupation?! How can we forget our martyrs?! How can we forget the victims of Khojaly and the deaths of other innocent people?! We can never forget this, and we must not forget it.” The head of state stressed in particular: “This history must be known by heart — in schools, at universities, and in families. This is our glorious Victory.”
Indeed, the significance of the victory in Karabakh for Azerbaijan is difficult to overestimate. Our country did not merely restore its territorial integrity and state sovereignty across its entire territory within internationally recognized borders. During those 44 days, history with a capital “H” was made. For the first time in the entire post-Soviet space, a newly independent state managed virtually from scratch to build a modern, combat-ready army and to resolve its main nationwide task — to expel the occupiers. For the first time in 200 years, Azerbaijan was not losing territory, but reclaiming it. The liberation of Karabakh required the efforts of military personnel, diplomats, and many others. We have every reason to be proud.
These words of the president of Azerbaijan were spoken at a time when the peace process in the region is gaining momentum. Against this backdrop, Ilham Aliyev’s remarks are not merely a historical reflection or a call not to forget one’s own past. They are also a warning: today, amid the peace process, we have no right to pretend that there was no Khojaly, no Balligaya, no occupied lands, no ethnic cleansing, and no destroyed cities. A peace process does not mean forgetting one’s own history. Knowing history is a vital condition for not repeating past mistakes. Moreover, as long as the peace process has not been completed — while the peace treaty has been initialed but not signed — the time for political “embraces,” both literal and figurative, has not yet come. There is no need to rush events.
Finally, there is another dimension. Too many people — as Ilham Aliyev also reminds us — are still unable to “digest” Azerbaijan’s victory. Most importantly, they cannot come to terms with the fact that Azerbaijan is now a state with an entirely different status on the international stage. From this follows a fairly predictable course of action: to downplay the significance of Azerbaijan’s victory, to make us recall it almost apologetically, as if we had disappointed our neighbors and failed to gift them our lands.
The irritation with which representatives of the “chattering class” in other countries reacted to discussions about the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis and the occupation of our territories has not disappeared. And today we should not renounce one of the most glorious pages of our history simply to win applause from this segment of the “international community.” More importantly, this is not about humanism or peace. It is about the fact that some still cannot accept Azerbaijan’s victory and are trying, one way or another, to “correct the situation.”
That will not work. We will not forget our history.
Nurani
