President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan spent much of his address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City on Thursday celebrating victory in a great “patriotic war” against Armenia, which he accused of illegally occupying territory which Azerbaijan had to retake by force.
He also celebrated improved relations after the war with Armenia and thanked President Donald Trump for mediating peace between them.
Aliyev declared “victory” on the “long road to peace” thanks to winning “liberation” against an “occupation,” a tortured way of saying that Muslim Azerbaijan seized control of disputed territory with a brutal siege against the ethnic Armenian Christians who lived in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September 2023.
The Azeri campaign to eject Armenians from the area was denounced as ethnic cleansing by human rights groups. The U.S. State Department stopped short of calling it ethnic cleansing, but cited the work of Freedom House to criticize the forced displacement of the Armenian residents.
The U.S. Congress heard testimony in September 2023 that accused Azerbaijan of gross human rights violations by cutting off the Armenian civilians in the contested region from their only line of supply and warned Azerbaijan was planning either ethnic cleansing or outright genocide.
As Aliyev indicated in his speech, Azerbaijan considered the Nagorno-Karabakh region to be its territory all along, so he framed the effort to recapture it as “liberation” against an “occupation.” He argued that the displacement of Azerbaijanis from the region after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s was itself an act of “ethnic cleansing” and a “war crime conducted by Armenia.”
Azerbaijan and Armenia became disenchanted with their former allies in Russia in the aftermath of the conflict, creating an opportunity for U.S. President Donald Trump to broker a peace deal in August between the feuding neighbors.
Aliyev blasted the United Nations for failing to resolve the territorial dispute with Armenia.
“In 2020, after almost 30 years of ineffective negotiations, Azerbaijan was forced to exercise its legitimate right to self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. charter,” he said.
Aliyev criticized Armenia’s conduct during the war they fought in 2020, accusing the Armenians of indiscriminately hitting Azeri civilian targets with artillery and missiles.
“Azerbaijan, in its turn, conducted the war in strict compliance with international humanitarian law. We ensured protection of civilians and refrained from targeting non-military infrastructure. In a 44-day patriotic war, our armed forces liberated occupied territories and restored Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity,” he said.
Although Aliyev did not mention it, Azerbaijan owned much of its victory to support from Turkey, in particular the lethal drones produced by Turkey’s Baykar corporation, which is run by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law. The Armenia-Azerbaijan War of 2020 was one of the great landmarks in the evolution of drone warfare, to be superseded a few years later by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in which the Ukrainians also made highly effective use of Turkish drones.
The president of Azerbaijan was relentlessly critical of Armenia throughout his speech, lamenting the cost of rebuilding the areas “liberated” from Armenia in the “patriotic war” of 2020, and especially the cost of rebuilding mosques destroyed by the “war criminals” who ran the Armenian “occupation.” He also claimed the Armenians littered the disputed region with land mines.
Aliev spent quite a bit of his speech applauding Azerbaijan’s “victorious war” over Armenia, but then pivoted to how the outcome of the war paved the “turn a new page in relations with Armenia.”
“On August 8 this year, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Washington, in the White House, in the presence of the leaders of the United States, Azerbaijan and Armenia, initialed the text of a peace agreement. The same day, the president of Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia signed the joint declaration. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, also signed it as a witness,” he recalled.
Aliev noted that “obsolete structures” of ineffective negotiation were swept aside by this agreement, while the new understanding between Azerbaijan and Armenia was solidified by a trilateral arrangement with the United States: the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP.
Aliyev praised TRIPP as an important achievement in “regional connectivity,” which in Azerbaijan’s case means establishing a safe and reliable supply route with an Azeri “exclave” that lies on the far side of Armenia, much as Alaska is separated from the continental United States by Canada.
The establishment of this economic corridor was soon followed by the creation of a strategic working group between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which was also cosigned by President Trump.
Aliyev thanked Trump for issuing a waiver to U.S. sanctions against Azerbaijan that were imposed in 1992, when Azerbaijan was accused of using a blockade against Armenian civilians during the first war between the two countries.
Aliyev has long maintained these sanctions were unjust and based on false allegations of human rights violations. In his UNGA speech, he called on the U.S. Congress to lift them permanently, eliminating “a legacy of double standards.”
“Overall, the agreements reached during my visit to the United States in August carry historic significance,” he said. “I want to express my gratitude to President Donald Trump for opening a new chapter in the U.S.-Azerbaijan relationship, for his decision to elevate it to the strategic partnership level, and for his support to the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
Aliev touted Azerbaijan’s support for U.N. programs and climate change initiatives, pointing to his country’s hosting of the COP29 climate conference in 2024, its support for the Paris climate accords, and its investments in renewable energy. He said his government is deeply concerned with environmental degradation in the Caspian Sea.
However, Aliyev cautioned against putting “unrealistic targets in front of us.”
“The world cannot live without fossil fuels today, and for the foreseeable future,” he declared. “Energy security is closely linked to peace, regional connectivity, and international development.”
“Azerbaijan has established itself as a reliable and indispensable partner in providing energy security to many countries,” he said, noting that Azerbaijan is one of the world’s top exporters of natural gas.
Aliev highlighted Azerbaijan’s support for Syria’s postwar reconstruction, noting that Azerbaijan “started to supply Syria with natural gas via Turkey” this year, “significantly reducing its electrical shortages.”
Aliev concluded by calling for more international cooperation, to “build a world without double standards, where justice is not selective, the rule of law is respected, and peace is achieved not through words alone, but through actions.”
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