"Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh should not worry. "Once we save their lives from the criminal junta, they will live better, safer and more prosperous."
This was stated by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in an interview with Turkish Haber Turk television.
According to the President, poverty reigns in Nagorno-Karabakh:
"We will invest there and implement social projects. At the same time, we will have programs to create jobs. All this will be a new stage for the Armenians living there and the Azerbaijanis who will return there.
This is our position. This is the position of Armenia: to expel the Azerbaijanis from there, to carry out ethnic cleansing, to place the historical and religious monuments of Azerbaijan and to declare that this is the land of ancient Armenia. However, Armenians were moved there by Tsarist Russia in the early 19th century.
The President said that Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh should know that the Azerbaijani people are not their enemy:
"Azerbaijani people simply want to live in their ancestral lands. The Azerbaijani people have a right to this. May they live, and may we live. But let them chase us, let them live. That's not fair. We can never agree to that. Every war results in peace.
We must also look at the post-war period. I think that if there is a strong political will on both sides, if international organizations help us in this matter, it will be possible to achieve this. "