Address by Khazar Farhadov, Ambassador of Republic of Azerbaijan to Pakistan on Victory Day.

Armenia for almost 30 years kept under occupation almost 20 percent of my country's territory. The occupation was accompanied with notorious war crimes and crimes against humanity. Armenia committed the Khojaly genocide in February 1992, killing hundreds of civilians, including 106 women and 63 children. 1275 Azerbaijanis were taken hostage, 150 of them are still missing. Armenia's ethnic cleansing has resulted in more than a million Azerbaijanis becoming refugees and internally displaced persons. In 1993, the UN Security Council adopted four resolutions calling for the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of armed forces Armenia from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. However, these and all other similar decisions adopted by relevant international organizations have been ignored by Armenia. During the occupation Armenia tried to maintain the status quo. Unfortunately, no international sanctions have been imposed on Armenia to ensure the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions.

The overthrow of the war criminal regime in Armenia in 2018 was not accompanied by real changes. The Armenian government has made a number of provocative statements and actions, such as "Karabakh is Armenia and period". The then Defense Minister of Armenia openly threatened Azerbaijan with a new war for the new territories. In addition, Armenia pursued a policy of illegal settlement of Armenians from third countries, in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, in gross violation of international law. In July 2020, Armenia committed a military provocation on the state border with Azerbaijan. As a result of an artillery strike in the Tovuz region of Azerbaijan, 13 servicemen and civilians were killed. In August last year, an Armenian sabotage group tried to penetrate through the former line of contact in order to commit terrorist acts against Azerbaijani military servicemen and civilians, but was successfully neutralized by us. At the General Debates of the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly on September 24 last year, President Ilham Aliyev warned that hostile, Azerbaijanohobic statements and provocations of Armenian leadership demonstrate that Armenia was preparing for a new aggression against Azerbaijan.

Three days later, on September 27 last year, Armenia launched a large-scale attack on Azerbaijani military positions and civilians. In response, Azerbaijan launched a counterattack in its own territories against Armenia, using the right...