(Baku) Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended a military parade in the main city of Nagorno-Karabakh on Wednesday, warning Armenia against any spirit of “revenge”, a few weeks after Baku recaptured this territory from the separatists Armenians.
Azerbaijani troops and a military band paraded in the central square of Khankendi, a town that Armenians call Stepanakert, according to images released by the Azerbaijani presidency.
We can also see the Azerbaijani flag flying on the building which housed the headquarters of the separatists’ political leadership.
“By shedding our blood and suffering losses on the battlefield, we have shown that Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. Today everyone should know that it is now inadvisable to joke with us,” President Aliyev said in a speech.
“If Armenian leaders still harbor ideas of revenge, if countries accustomed to manipulating and supporting Armenia still devise cunning plans against Azerbaijan, let them watch today’s parade! We are ready to fight on all fronts,” he said.
Vice-President Mehriban Alieva, wife of the head of state, and their son Heydar also participated in the ceremony, said a press release from the presidency.
Ilham Aliev visited this regional capital for the first time on October 15 and raised his national flag there.
This Wednesday marks the third anniversary of Baku’s victory over Yerevan in 2020 following a six-week war. Armenia was then forced to cede to Azerbaijan significant territories in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, which it had controlled for around thirty years.
A first war in the 1990s, when the USSR broke up, left 30,000 dead and pushed hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee one country or another.
In September, Baku launched a lightning offensive forcing the separatists to capitulate, and took control of the entire territory, almost the entire population of which – more than 100,000 people out of the 120,000 officially recorded – fled in Armenia.
Negotiations conducted under the auspices of international mediation to reach a comprehensive peace agreement between the Caucasus neighbors, who have bitter hatred for each other, have so far failed to produce any breakthrough.