President: Azerbaijani people mobilized all their forces, fulfilled historically glorious mission

The people of Azerbaijan mobilized all their forces and fulfilled the historically glorious mission, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said at a solemn ceremony to hand over the battle flag to the commando military unit as part of his visit to Kalbajar district, Report informs, citing AZERTAC.

"We showed the greatness of our people in the Patriotic War, our invincible spirit, and our strong resolve. We showed that the Azerbaijani people never intended to come to terms with the occupation. We simply wanted this issue to be resolved peacefully, and that was the goal of our negotiations for many years. We did not want bloodshed. We were hoping that the international community would impose sanctions on Armenia and force the occupier out of our lands. Unfortunately, we did not see that, and the people of Azerbaijan mobilized all their forces and fulfilled the historically glorious mission.

"We will forever live as a victorious nation and as a victorious state. But in order to achieve this glorious victory, we had to work day and night and gather strength because the power factor is at the forefront in the present-day world. The norms and principles of international law do not work. In fact, international organizations continue to operate only formally. Justice was on our side, international law was on our side, and our lands were under occupation. But no one told the occupier, "Get out of Azerbaijan!" Therefore, we had to gather the strength to fulfill this task on our own, and we did exactly that. We gathered political strength and increased our power in the international arena. We proved to the whole world that Karabakh is Azerbaijan, and the Azerbaijani people would never put up with this occupation. We gathered economic power and gained economic independence. If we had not had economic independence if we had not had these opportunities, how could we wage war? Therefore, economic independence and rapid development brought us closer to victory," President noted.