Aliyev Visits Ankara, Repeats Territorial Claims Against Armenia

On March 5, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited Ankara, where he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan participated in the virtual inauguration of the Iğdır-Nakhchivan gas pipeline. During the ceremony, Aliyev once again reiterated Azerbaijan’s territorial claims against Armenia.

“As you know, Nakhchivan is an ancient Azerbaijani land. However, for more than a century, it has been separated from the main part of Azerbaijan. The reason for this is that in 1920, five months after the collapse of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the Soviet government detached Western Zangezur from Azerbaijan and handed it over to Armenia. As a result, the land connection between Azerbaijan and its integral part, Nakhchivan, was severed.

This century-long injustice has had a severely negative impact on the lives of our compatriots living in Nakhchivan. In particular, when the First Karabakh War began, Armenia occupied Karabakh while simultaneously blockading Nakhchivan. Their plans also included capturing Nakhchivan. However, at the time, my father, Heydar Aliyev, as the leader of Nakhchivan, did not allow this to happen,” Aliyev stated.