Ilham Aliyev announced in a televised address on Sunday, 8 November, that Azerbaijani forces had taken Shusha, known as Shushi in Armenian. Seizing the strategically important town would be a major victory for Azerbaijan in the ongoing conflict over the disputed territory.
President Aliyev said the “liberation” of Shusha would “go down in the history of the Azerbaijani people”.
“There is no force in the world that can stop us,” he said, pledging to retake Nagorno-Karabakh for his country.
In an interview made before the latest developments from Shusha, Mr Aliyev told the BBC’s Orla Guerin said Armenia was running out of time.
“Their opportunities to compromise are shrinking because we are getting those territories back by force,” he said.
Armenia, however, has denied the town has been taken by Azerbaijan.
Main points of this interview worth the attention:
Orla Guerin: Do you accept that there’s a danger of humanitarian catastrophe this winter in NK? What is going to be with the fait of the civilians?
We will take care of them. Absolutely, no doubt about that. We will provide them with everything – with food, with water.
Orla Guerin: In an attack in NK, a church was shelled twice on the same day. You said that possibly it was a mistake, you have said you will carry out an investigation. What’s the result of investigation?
In order to investigate it, we have to be there to investigate. As I said many times – either it was a mistake of our artillery, or it was a deliberate provocation by Armenians themselves.
Orla Guerin: So you may have done it?
Who you? It could have been by mistake only, because there was no military target, church was not among our military targets.
Orla Guerin: So you made a mistake twice a day, as it was hit twice?
Why not?
Orla Guerin: BBC reporters were in Stepanakert on 1 -3 October, they witnessed random shelling of a town, including an emergency center, an apartment block destroyed, as people tried to flee there was a drone over their heads, shortly after more shelling of a town without no clear military targets.
I doubt these witnesses. So what they were there? That can be anything. That can be fake news.
Orla Guerin: So you cannot be guilty of any wrong?
No, absolutely.
Orla Guerin: There is an evidence that you have used cluster munitions in civilian areas documented by Human Rights Watch (photographs, videos, testimony from witnesses).
We are not using them (cluster munition), these are another fake news.
Orla Guerin: So everything is fake news?
Of course! Why not?
To prove that Ilham Aliyev is lying to BBC journalist Orla Guirin, here are few videos of other media representatives who reported directly from Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh and showed the totally opposite side of the situation.