Azerbaijan is marking the 90th anniversary of National Leader Heydar Aliyev. President Ilham Aliyev arrived to the Honorary Alley and laid flowers to his father, Heydar Aliyev. The Flower Festival started at the park near the Heydar Aliyev Palace.
The Ciragan Palace of Istanbul organized a meeting of high-ranking officials. SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev is attending it. Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz noted that Heydar Aliyev's efforts helped development of the whole region. Turkish Minister for Customs and Trade Hayati Yazici said that Aliyev had an imprint on the Turkic world. Turkish ex-Minister for Interior Affairs Idris Naim Sahin said that the name of Heydar Aliyev will be remembered as long as Azerbaijan exists.
Heydar Aliyev was born in Nakhchivan on May 10, 1923. He left the Nakhchivan Pedagogue Technical School in 1939 and started studies at the Architecture Faculty of the Azerbaijani Industrial Institute.
He became the head of an office of the People's Commissariat of Interior Affairs of the Nakhchivan ASSR and the Council of People's Commissar's of the Nakhchivan ASSR in 1941, moved to state security structures in 1944. He became the deputy chairman of the Committee for State Security of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijani SSR in 1964 and chairman in 1967, being promoted to Major-General. He graduated in Leningrad and graduated at the History Faculty of the Azerbaijani State University in 1957.
Aliyev became the first secretary of the Central Committee and head of the republic in July 1969. He was elected as a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR in December 1982 and appointed as deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. He was a member of the Supreme Council of the USSR for 20 years and deputy head of the Supreme Council for 5 years.
In Otober 1987, Aliyev resigned as a sign of protest against the policy of the Communist Party and Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev.
A tragedy happened when Soviet soldiers made a massacre in Baku on January 20, 1990. He spoke at the Azerbaijani office in Moscow and demanded punishments to people responsible for the bloodshed. He left the Communist Party in July 1991 as a protest against the party's attitude towards the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Aliyev returned to Azerbaijan in July 1990 and then moved to Nakhchivan. He was elected to the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan, was chairman of the Nakhchivan parliament in 1991-1993, deputy head of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan. The Yeni Azerbaijan Party elected him as its leader in Nakhchivan in 1992.
Azerbaijani people demanded Aliyev to take control over the country in May-June 1993, during the governmental crisis. Heydar Aliyev was elected as the chairman of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan on June 15, 1993, and became President of Azerbaijan on July 24.
The population voted for Heydar Aliyev as the president on October 3, 1993. He was re-elected on October 11, 1998, with 76.1% of votes. He did not run for president again on October 15, 2003, due to health problems.
Azerbaijani National Leader President Heydar Aliyev died at the Cleveland Clinic in the US on December 12, 2003.
