Azerbaijan voices its position: the sooner the war ends, the better

Azerbaijan seeks to end hostilities with Armenia as soon as possible, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Italian La Repubblica newspaper.

"I think that the sooner the war stops the better. And we made such a suggestion. And our proposal was very constructive. I said many times during this more than one month, I can repeat once again. We are ready to stop today," he said.

But Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinan does not want to make such a commitment.

"When asked about compromises, he always talks about self-determination. But self-determination is not the compromise they have to do. Their compromise must be the liberation of all occupied territories with respect to the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions and the basic principles. Because basic principles say that five regions and then two. So, four are already done by us unilaterally. Therefore, he must say that he will pull back the troops from the remaining part of Aghdam and Kalbajar and Lachin districts. But he doesn’t make this statement. So it shows that he doesn’t want the war to stop," Ilham Aliyev stressed.

The Armenian armed forces committed a large-scale provocation, subjecting the positions of the Azerbaijani army to intensive shelling from large-caliber weapons, mortars, and artillery installations of various calibers in the front-line zone on Sept. 27 at 05:00 (Msk). The command of the Azerbaijani Army decided to launch a counter-offensive operation of Azerbaijani troops along the entire front to suppress the combat activity of the Armenian armed forces and ensure the safety of the civilian population. To date, Fizuli and Jabrayil districts, including the cities of Jabrayil and Fizuli, the city of Zangilan and part of Zangilan district, part of the Gubaldi region, the city of Gubadli, the city of Hadrut, and a number of villages in the Khojavend region, the villages of Sugovushan and Talish in the Terter region, as well as the strategically important Murovdag mountain were liberated.