Ilham Aliyev: We knew our potential, we knew what we were capable of

“We knew our potential, we knew what we were capable of doing and, naturally, we soberly assessed, in contrast to the Armenian side, the capabilities of the enemy and tried to use the levers of influence in order to force Armenia to vacate the occupied territories of its own free will,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to editor-in-chief of Russian influential “Natsionalnaya oborona” magazine, well-known military expert Igor Korotchenko, Report informs referring to AzerTag.

“And all my calls to international institutions to impose sanctions on Armenia had this goal. Because if this had happened, Armenia would have been forced to leave the occupied territories and the war would not have happened. Unfortunately, this did not happen. In the period leading up to the war, the Armenian leadership had switched to open provocations,” Ilham Aliyev noted.