On 25 October 2020, President Ilham Aliyev gave an interview to the US channel Fox News, which Trend later presented from Baku. He said Armenia, not Azerbaijan, opened fire on 27 September with heavy artillery, that civilians and soldiers were hit in the first hours, and that Baku then defended itself and liberated an important part of the occupied territories. Trend’s introduction says the army’s counter-offensive, later called Iron Fist, answered a large-scale Armenian provocation, and that the 44-day war ended the nearly 30-year occupation and restored Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
Aliyev said his call for Armenian troops to leave matched United Nations Security Council resolutions adopted in 1993, which demanded a complete, unconditional and immediate withdrawal. He said the mediators, the United States, Russia and France, had not presented a plan to give Nagorno-Karabakh independence. He described a proposal to return surrounding territories from which, he said, more than 700,000 Azerbaijanis had been expelled, and he said Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh were Azerbaijani citizens who would live in peace beside Azerbaijanis who returned.
He said the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian foreign ministers issued a joint ceasefire declaration in Moscow on 10 October, and that Armenia then fired ballistic missiles at Ganja, killing 10 civilians and wounding more than 30, with a second attack killing 15. He said Azerbaijan was ready to agree a ceasefire that day if Armenia’s prime minister committed to the basic principles elaborated by the United States, Russia and France, including a timetable for withdrawal and peaceful coexistence.
Aliyev rejected claims that Turkish-backed Syrian fighters were taking part, saying France and Russia had commented publicly without presenting proof. He said Turkey gave political support as an ally. He asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose country co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group with France and Russia, to tell Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s envoy that rejecting a diplomatic solution and saying Karabakh is Armenia were dangerous, and to discourage requests for Russian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh. He said he hoped that day’s meeting in Washington would persuade Armenia to stop attacks and commit to leaving the territories.
He said he supported President Trump’s comments as balanced for a mediator, while noting Armenian communities and lobbying in the United States, France and Russia. He recalled meeting then vice-president Joe Biden four years earlier at a nuclear summit in Washington, where Nagorno-Karabakh was discussed. Looking ahead, he said he wanted the South Caucasus deeply integrated and, once peace came, relations with Armenia to resemble to some degree Azerbaijan’s ties with Georgia, within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and with the rights of the Armenian population protected.