Zahid Oruj: “The tone of congratulations addressed to the President has changed.”

A leader’s place in history is not measured solely by the assessment given to him by his own people. The true criterion is determined by the attitude of other nations, including other heads of state, toward him.

During the period of occupation, the congratulations addressed to Ilham Aliyev employed cautious and neutral diplomatic terms such as “stability,” “regional cooperation,” and “energy partnership.”

Today, the same world leaders describe Ilham Aliyev as the “architect of new geopolitical realities,” a “victorious president,” and a “builder and strategist of regional order.” The tone of congratulations has changed—because the political weight of our state has increased and the leader’s victorious status has been confirmed internationally.

History remembers such leaders by the name of their era: the Roosevelt era. The Churchill era. The Ilham Aliyev era.

Despite being the child of a First Secretary, the son of the third most powerful figure of an empire, and the political successor of a President, he became the bearer of the aspirations of ordinary people, the voice of the hopes of calloused hands.

Ilham Aliyev erased the centuries-old dilemma of “who is to blame,” from our history, bringing intergenerational guilt to an end. Today, we bequeath victory to the children of tomorrow, not occupation and genocides. We no longer look with envy at the victories of other nations.
Those who in the 1990s presented the withdrawal of Russian troops from our country as an achievement do not admit that, as a result of the state’s weakness at the time, those forces in fact did not leave our territories, remaining over 20 percent of our lands for decades.

However, in 2024, the withdrawal of the Russian military contingent from our lands—without war, without losses, according to a schedule determined by Baku, and one year ahead of time—is a unique case in the Caucasus since Peter the Great. For the first time, foreign military forces are being withdrawn by the political will of a victorious and sovereign state.

At one time, speaking of our heroism in the Second World War, we used to say: “The sons of Azerbaijan traveled an honorable path from the Caucasus to Berlin.” Yet for 30 years we could not go to our own lands. Today, we can fly to any European capital from Zangilan or Fuzuli. Like our lands, our airspace is also free.

The hero of the post-war period is now the worker, the implementer, the project manager. He is the civilian Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the builder constructing the new Homeland, of the electrician crossing mountains, and of the engineer laying water lines.

Now, military units are being replaced by construction and development battalions. In Karabakh, Ilham Aliyev is not only building infrastructure; he is sending a message to the world—we have returned, returned forever, and we are not merely constructing buildings, but also building our political future.

In Yerevan, he has also replaced religious-political rituals based on the triad of church, state, and diaspora with prayers for peace.

When Azerbaijani leaders were weak in the Caucasus, they always lost land and wealth. Now, the fate of Yerevan and Tbilisi is decided in Baku.

Because Ilham Aliyev has become a symbol of victory, the congratulations addressed to him are no longer mere protocol; they constitute an international political assessment of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.