President Ilham Aliyev addresses 7th CICA Summit in Baku

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev delivered a comprehensive keynote address at the 7th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) convened in Baku on October 15.

The head of state welcomed the accession of the Lao People's Democratic Republic as the 29th member state of CICA, extending congratulations to Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith. President Aliyev also expressed gratitude to the member states for their unanimous endorsement of Azerbaijan’s chairmanship and the decision to extend Baku's leadership tenure for another two years. 

Highlighting Azerbaijan's geostrategic role as a unifying hub across Eurasia, President Aliyev reaffirmed Baku's independent foreign policy grounded in sovereign equality, non-interference, and the rejection of double standards in international diplomacy. He recalled that during 30 years of foreign military occupation, approximately 20% of Azerbaijan's sovereign land was seized and one million citizens were ethnically cleansed.

The President criticized the chronic inaction regarding four binding UN Security Council resolutions, the artificial paralysis within the OSCE Minsk Group, and the historical bias of European institutions such as the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.

The President detailed that Azerbaijan decisively restored its territorial integrity through the 44-day Patriotic War in 2020 and the swift counter-terrorism operation in September 2023, bringing separatist ringleaders to trial in what he likened to a contemporary Nuremberg tribunal. Underlining that military conflict was never Azerbaijan's preferred course, President Aliyev reiterated Baku's commitment to regional stability: "We offered peace, and for slightly more than a year, we have lived in peace. This peace remains fragile, and it must be preserved and strengthened." The President concluded by detailing the institutional advancement achieved under Azerbaijan's CICA stewardship across connectivity, transit corridors, digitalization, environmental security, and economic collaboration. 

N. Tebrizli