President: Second Karabakh war showed Azerbaijan’s military power

“We had been working for a long time to strengthen our potential, primarily to secure ensure economic independence. In essence, it was a combination of all these measures that led to the fact that we created a very powerful military component, and the second Karabakh war showed this,” 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.

“Naturally, we had been working for a long time to strengthen our potential, primarily to secure ensure economic independence. Because without that we would have been dependent on some financial investments or credit resources and, naturally, could not afford to modernize the armed forces. Therefore, practically from the first day of my tenure as President, we began work on securing economic independence. I think we achieved it in about six to seven years. By 2010, Azerbaijan was already fully capable of pursuing an independent economic policy, implementing reforms and investing heavily in infrastructure,” Ilham Aliyev noted.

“Of course, the modernization of the armed forces in terms of the purchase of modern models of military equipment proceeded at a rapid pace. This data has always been published, it is in the public domain, and everyone knew how much of what we were buying and from whom. And, of course, a lot of day-to-day work was carried out to increase the combat effectiveness of the armed forces. It is well known that no matter what technical capabilities a country may possess, it would be impossible to win a battle, let alone a war, without efficient armed forces, especially in such unfavorable geographic conditions,” he added.

“In essence, it was a combination of all these measures that led to the fact that we created a very powerful military component, and the second Karabakh war showed this. We had also demonstrated our capabilities, albeit in a very limited manner, during the hostilities in April 2016, when a part of the occupied territories was liberated and we gave the Armenian side the opportunity to make an important decision on de-occupation. Unfortunately, when we stopped, our actions were misinterpreted by the Armenian side, and they paid for that,” Ilham Aliyev said.