Ilham Aliyev
Ilham Aliyev 
| |
|---|---|
| Name in Armenian | Իլհամ Ալիև |
| Birthplace | Baku |
| Birth date | 24 December 1961 |
| Resides in | Baku |
| Positions | Azerbaijani President |
| Ethnicities | Azerbaijani |
President of Azerbaijan since 2003, son of former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev who served from 1993 to 2003 and even earlier as head of Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982.
Aliev Says Armenian Genocide A 'Fantasy'
Reuters
Source
Azerbaijan, which lost land in a war with neighboring Armenia, on Friday condemned French draft legislation making it a crime to deny the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks and said the massacre was a "fantasy".
Azeri President Ilham Aliev, speaking in English, criticized the bill, which was approved by France's lower house of parliament earlier this month causing fury in Turkey.
"It has nothing to do with reality. The so-called genocide is the fantasy of the Armenian lobby ... to justify their aggression against other countries to present themselves as the victims," Aliev told foreign journalists. He said the bill was a "blatant violation" of democracy.
France is home to Europe's largest share of the Armenian diaspora.
Azerbaijan, which shares with Turkey the Muslim faith, common ethnic roots and a similar language, lost its Nagorno-Karabakh territory to its Christian neighbor Armenia in the 1990s during a full-scale military conflict in which some 35,000 people were killed.
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Azerbaijani President calls 'to attack Armenia in all directions'
Azerbaijan will exert pressure on Armenia unless the seized lands are liberated,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said when addressing today the graduates of the Supreme Military School. “Azerbaijan must attack Armenia in all directions. The attack must be political, economic and diplomatic,” he said.
“Nagorno Karabakh will never join Armenia and will never be independent,” he said.
“Yerevan drags out time hoping for success. In my opinion, this wish is conditioned by career ambitions of some politicians. I do not believe that Armenia is interested in protracting the settlement process,” Aliyev said.
Noting the necessity of creation of a military-industrial multiplex, Aliyev said that in the end of the year Azerbaijan will launch its first military output. “War is not over and Azerbaijan will strengthen its army,” he said reminding that his country’s military budget is equal to Armenia’s state budget, IA Regnum reports.
http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=22744
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Karabakh Armenians Told To Accept Azeri Rule Or Emigrate
By Emil Danielyan for Armenialiberty.org
Azerbaijan’s tough-talking President Ilham Aliev has said that Nagorno-Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population must agree to return under Azerbaijani rule or emigrate from its homeland.
“We will never allow the creation of a second Armenian state on Azerbaijani soil,” Aliev said in his New Year’s address to the nation cited by Azerbaijani media. “If the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh want to self-determine, they should do that within the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. If they don’t want that, they should leave Nagorno-Karabakh and create their second state elsewhere.”
The remarks came just two weeks before international mediators’ crucial visit to Baku and Yerevan which should finally clarify whether the Karabakh conflict can be resolved before presidential elections due in both Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2008. The French, Russian and U.S. co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group still hope to hammer out a framework peace accord before the Armenian election slated for February 19. Sources close to them say the conflicting parties essentially agree on the main points of the Minsk Group’s current peace plan.
The plan calls for a gradual settlement of the bitter dispute which would start from the liberation of Armenian-occupied lands in Azerbaijan proper and end in a referendum of self-determination in Karabakh. Although it sets no time frame for the holding of such a referendum, the mediators seem to accept the very possibility of eventual international recognition of the disputed territory’s secession from Soviet Azerbaijan.
However, Aliev again insisted that his country will never come to terms with the loss of Karabakh. “Nagorno-Karabakh will never be granted independence,” he said. “The leadership and the people of Azerbaijan will never agree to that.”
Aliev also pledged to carry on with a military build-up which Baku hopes will eventually enable it to win back Karabakh. He said Azerbaijan’s defense spending will rise by at least 20 percent to $1.2 billion this year as a result. “We are reinforcing our army because we must be ready to free our lands of occupiers at any moment and by any means,” he added.
Armenia’s defense budget, although more modest in absolute terms, is likewise set to increase by over 30 percent to $400 million in 2008. In the intensifying arms race with Azerbaijan, Armenia can also capitalize on its close military ties with Russia which allow it to receive Russian weapons at knockdown prices or even free of charge.
In a televised speech on December 31, President Robert Kocharian said his government further boosted the combat-readiness of Armenia’s Armed Forces in the course of 2007. “The strengthening of the army will remain a top priority,” he said.
Kocharian said that Yerevan will also “step up efforts to bolster the Nagorno-Karabakh by helping our brethren to build viable statehood. A statehood which is able to defend itself.”
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Azerbaijani president: Armenians are guests in Yerevan
Regnum.ru
Source
Today, on January 17, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev went to the front-line area and participated in opening ceremony of Geydar Aliyev Museum and the Olympic Center in the village of Guzanly. As the presidential press office informs, Ilham Aliyev also had a meeting with local residents. During the meeting, he made several statements on settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.
Particularly, while speaking to the local residents, Aliyev announced that the war with Armenia was not over, Az.TV state television informs. He added that “Armenia did not won the war; it was just the first stage of the war completed.” Aliyev noted that “Nagorno Karabakh will never be independent; the position is backed by international mediators as well; Armenia has to accept the reality.” According to Aliyev, “in 1918, Yerevan was granted to the Armenians. It was a great mistake. The khanate of Iravan (Yerevan) was the Azeri territory, the Armenians were guests here.” As for the role of international organizations, they, according to the Azerbaijani president, show double standards in the problem of Nagorno Karabakh.
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Protests And Vandalism As Azeri Dictator Visits France
http://www.reporter.am/go/article/2012-09-24-protests-and-vandalism-as-azeri-dictator-visits-france- Published: Monday September 24, 2012
At the Armenian protest. Jean Eckian
Paris - More than 900 French of Armenian descent expressed their dissatisfaction with the visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Paris on September 18, only days after he pardoned an axe murderer who killed his sleeping Armenian classmate at a Budapest dormitory.
Protesters gathered in front of Azerbaijan embassy included members of the French National Assembly and Senate Francois Rochebloine, Rene Rouquet, Francois Pupponi, Philippe Kaltenbach and Valerie Boyer.
Boyer, the author of the bill condemning of the Armenian genocide denial, called the axe murderer affair is "Azerbaijan's crime against Armenia" and "a violation of the international law."
The leaders of the Armenian organizations of France, Ara Toranian, Mourad Papazian (CCAF), Harout Mardirossian (CDCA), Hratch Varjabedian ( BFCA) and Yeriche Gorizian (Nor Seround), condemned vigorously the presence of the "dictator Aliyev" on French ground. They also called for self-determination of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Among slogans, the crowd shouted "Aliev the fascist, out of France!", "Safarov in prison!" and "Karabakh belongs to us."
Aliyev visited Paris for inauguration of the Arts of Islam exhibit the Musee du Louvre, a $131 million project for which Azerbaijan - together with France, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman and Saudi Arabia - provided partial funding, reported Agence France Press.
"Azerbaijani money is dirty money, this is money from a terrorist and dictatorial state," Hratch Varjabedian, the head of the French Bureau of the Armenian Cause, said at the protest.
Aliyev also had a private meeting with members of MEDEF, the French business association, and was received by President Francois Holland, in spite of vociferous protests of the Armenian organizations of France.
In a written statement, the French presidency said that Hollande "called on Azerbaijan to take the necessary measures to re-establish a climate of confidence with Armenia," reported the RFE/RL Armenian Service. In a September 3 statement, the French Foreign Ministry said that Aliyev's pardon and promotion of the axe murderer "risks seriously damaging the negotiation efforts and the establishment of a climate of trust between the parties" to the Karabakh conflict.
Meantime, about 150 Azerbaijanis and Turks - including some who reportedly arrived from Germany and The Netherlands - held a protest near the Armenian embassy in Paris.
And overnight, on September 17-18, the Armenian booth at the Top Resa 2012 International Travel Market exhibit was vandalized, the National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia reported in a press release. The booth was subsequently restored with additional security added.
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Aliyev Twitter Outburst
What Do Azerbaijan, Estonia, And Rwanda Have In Common?
Foreign Policy Nov 21 2012
Posted By Uri Friedman Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Not very much, you say? Au contraire! All three countries, it seems, have presidents who are prone to picking fights on Twitter. First Rwandan President Paul Kagame unloaded on journalist Ian Birrell over human rights criticisms. Then Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves ripped into columnist Paul Krugman for calling his country the "poster child for austerity defenders." Now Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, has unleashed a tirade against neighboring Armenia (the two countries are locked in a long-simmering dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region).
Here are some of Aliyev's tweets from earlier today:
Ilham Aliyev @presidentaz "Azerbaijan grows stronger and more powerful by the year, while Armenia weakens and declines every year." 20 Nov 12
Ilham Aliyev @presidentaz "I have often talked about it, I want to say it again without fearing anyone - our enemy is the Armenian lobby " 20 Nov 12
Ilham Aliyev @presidentaz "A young, dynamic, truly independent, modern Muslim country, Azerbaijan has become a problem for them, it does not fit into their stereotypes " 20 Nov 12
Ilham Aliyev @presidentaz "Armenia as a country is of no value. It is actually a colony, an outpost run from abroad, a territory (cont) tl.gd/k2p4ba " 20 Nov 12
The salvos have provoked a sharp response from at least one Armenian official. "Aliyev shows by his cynical proclamations that there are still supporters of fascism in the 21st century," Eduard Sharmazanov, the Armenian parliament's deputy chairman, tells AFP, adding that "his remarks recall the 1930s-1940s and [Nazi leader Adolf] Hitler."
Aliyev's tweets today appear to be lifted verbatim from a speech he gave last week to mark the 20th anniversary of his New Azerbaijan Party -- an address that received little attention outside Azerbaijan at the time. Since the broadsides appeared on Twitter, however, Aliyev's attacks have been picked up by news outlets like Reuters, RIA Novosti, GlobalPost, and, yes, FP.
The lesson in all this for world leaders? If you're going to pick a fight with somebody and want people to notice, you'd better do it 140 characters at a time.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/20/what_do_azerbaijan_estonia_and_rwanda_have_in_common
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