The peace established between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be long-lasting, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said, but stressed that Baku “does not intend to forget” the events of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

At the same time, he made a number of controversial statements, to put it mildly, about the second Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020 and Armenia’s actions during the conflict. Aliyev made these statements during a meeting with participants of international conferences in Azerbaijani capital of Baku, APA reports.

“Today, peace has been established and the war has stopped. A peace process is underway between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and I am confident that peace will be long-lasting. In any case, this is the position of the Azerbaijani state,” Aliyev said. But he added that Azerbaijan “will never forget the victims of Khojaly, the destroyed [Azerbaijani] mosques and cultural objects, and the memory of those events,” which, according to him, must be preserved by the “vigilance of Azerbaijani society.”

Speaking about the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, Aliyev claimed that Azerbaijani forces struck only Armenian “military units” and “never waged war against unarmed [Armenian] civilians.” According to him, this “corresponds to the mentality and customs of the Azerbaijani people.” “We had to take revenge on the battlefield, and we have fully paid back for what happened.

The blood of our martyrs has been avenged,” Aliyev stated. Also, the Azerbaijani president touched separately upon the condition of Azerbaijani mosques in the territories that were under the control of Armenian forces. He stated that 65 mosques had been completely destroyed, and some others were in a semi-destroyed state.

In addition, Aliyev accused Armenia of allegedly keeping livestock, including pigs and cows, in mosques during its control of those territories, calling it "a deliberate dishonor to Azerbaijanis and the entire Islamic world."