We did not launch a military attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia launched a military attack on Azerbaijan. In the first hours of this military attack, there were casualties among our civilians and servicemen.
The statement came from President Ilham Aliyev in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Gadin.Net reports quoting AzerTaj.
Speaking about the military provocations committed by Armenia against Azerbaijan in the last three months, the head of state said: “They attacked us for the first time on the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border, far from the Karabakh region. The unanimous opinion of international observers was that Armenia attacked us.
They wanted to occupy new territories. They wanted to take control of our strategic energy infrastructure, located a few kilometers from the state border with Armenia. As you probably know, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline is almost complete. The Southern Gas Corridor is an energy security project not only for Azerbaijan but also for Europe.
We believe that one of Armenia's goals was to seize control of the pipeline and blackmail us, perhaps European consumers. They were given a serious answer. We managed to get them back. "
Speaking about the political motives of the Armenian attack on September 27, President Ilham Aliyev said that it was "to keep the status quo unchanged, to blame us for this escalation, to completely break the talks, to involve third countries in the conflict and to internationalize the conflict." . Emphasizing that Azerbaijan responded to them only adequately, the head of state said: "As a result, we have liberated and continue to liberate part of the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan."