Today marks the 93rd birthday anniversary of the national leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Alirza oglu Aliyev, who served as the President of the Republic in 1993-2003.
Heydar Aliyev was born on 10 May 1923 in Nakhichevan, he graduated from the Nakhchivan Pedagogical College and started to study at the architectural department of the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute. During the war [WWII] he worked at an office of the People's Commissariat of Interior Affairs and the Council of People's Commissar's of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Nakhchivan; at the age of 21 he was sent to work at the state security service. Later, he received special higher education in Leningrad and graduated from the history department of the Azerbaijan State University.
From 1964 he held the post of the deputy chairman, and three years later in from 1967 the chairman of the Committee of State Security under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General. In 1969, he became the head of the Azerbaijan SSR. In 1982 he was elected to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
After nearly 20 years of leadership in the republic, in 1987, Heydar Aliyev, as a sign of protest against the policy pursued by Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and personally the Secretary General Michael Gorbachev in relation to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, resigned from his post.
Since July 1990, Heydar Aliyev lived in Baku, then in Nakhchivan. He was elected to the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan, he also held the post of the Chairman of the Supreme Assembly of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan, the Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the chairman of the Yeni Azerbaijan Party.
On 24 July 1993 Heydar Aliyev became the acting President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and on October 3, 1993, he was elected the President of the Republic.
On October 11, 1998, Heydar Aliyev was re-elected president for the second term. In 2003, he refused to participate in the next presidential elections due to health problems. He died on December 12, 2003 at the Cleveland Clinic in the US. On December 15 Aliyev was buried at the Alley of Honor in Baku.
As the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev noted yesterday during a commemorative event in honor of the 93rd anniversary of the birth of Heydar Aliyev, the national leader of the Republic saved Azerbaijan from anarchy and chaos twice.
"In 1969, Azerbaijan was one of the most underdeveloped republics of the Soviet Union. As a result of the efforts, skills and knowledge of Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan has turned into the most advanced republic in just 13 years. There were only two republics in the Soviet Union, except the Russian Federation, which did not receive subsidies from the center. Azerbaijan was one of them. In those days huge work had been done in Azerbaijan in the field of industrial production, agriculture and infrastructure. Event today that work help Azerbaijan. The results achieved in those years, in particular in the implementation of infrastructure projects in the oil and gas sector, advances in the development of the process industry help us today," Trend cited Ilham Aliyev as saying.
Resignation of Heydar Aliyev from all the positions in 1987 was a blow to Azerbaijan. "Less than two weeks after his resignation the Armenian nationalists raised the question of annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The factor of Heydar Aliyev did not allow them to express these intentions, but after his removal from the political stage the issue was raised. Unfortunately, the Soviet leadership didn't stop these negative trends. That time marks the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union. I remember that Heydar Aliyev was very upset over this situation. He regularly traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh – to Khankendi, Shusha. That is, it was an artificially created provocation. Unfortunately, Azerbaijan is still experiencing bitter consequences of this provocation," the president stressed.
'Black January' has become one of the peaks of the criminal policy of the Center [the central government of the USSR]. "The tragedy of January 20, 1990 is a great crime committed against the Azerbaijani people. Heydar Aliyev came to the permanent representation of Azerbaijan in Moscow, I was there with him. He accused the Soviet leadership during the press conference. Such a bold move showed once again how deeply Heydar Aliyev was attached to his people, what a courageous and selfless man he was," Ilham Aliyev noted.
"Of course, after that they started to pressure him, but these provocative steps could not make him change his way. He left the Communist Party as a sign of protest, returned to Baku; but he was not allowed to live in Baku either, so he went to Nakhchivan. It was people of Nakhchivan in the first place who protected Heydar Aliyev from all pressures and provocations. And then he, as the head of Nakhchivan, also protected them from the occupation. These were crucial years for our independence, because, as I believe, the path to independence has started at that time in Nakhchivan," the president of Azerbaijan reminded.
Considering the difficult situation, the invitation of Heydar Aliyev to the post of the head of the republic was inevitable. "Heydar Aliyev was with his people during the most difficult for our independence moments. In 1993 marks a turning point for Azerbaijan: the civil war ended, illegal armed formations were disarmed. The country entered a period of development," Aliyev said.
"The Constitution was adopted, democratic reforms were started. The 'Contract of the Century' and the contract on the development of the Shah Deniz gas field were signed. The process of developing a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society has begun in Azerbaijan, and today it is our greatest asset. Therefore, we always say that Heydar Aliyev is the founder of independent Azerbaijan. Recalling those events, we are once again convinced that today Azerbaijan is developing in the true sense. Today, Azerbaijan has proved itself as an independent state on a global scale," the president of Azerbaijan concluded.
