President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has complained of the attempts of external pressure.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a new middle school building in Baku, the Azerbaijani President noted that “those intending to interfere in our affairs are not few at all.”

“Those intending to interfere in our affairs at different times have been pursuing their goals throughout these years. Their goals do not overlap with ours. And our goal is independence, freedom and people’s welfare. Some foreign circles have quite a different purpose: to dictate to us, to turn Azerbaijan into a tool, to break Azerbaijani people’s will, and then to use a powerful country like Azerbaijan for their own purposes. This would be a catastrophe for us,” Aliyev said.

“We see the experience and recent history of other countries. The countries, which are controlled from abroad, are destroyed. The countries which don’t resist external negative impact, are destroyed and their people perish,” he added.

A few days ago Azerbaijan summoned the U.S. Ambassador for consultations over a critical article in Washington Post. Hearings on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan are scheduled to take place in the U.S. Congress on Thursday.