On October 8, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was interviewed by Rossiya-1 TV channel in Moscow.
Correspondent: Recently, you spoke quite bluntly about American sanctions against Azerbaijan. As we know, Russia is currently under the pressure of thousands of sanctions. In your opinion, do sanctions as a policy have any future at all?
President Ilham Aliyev: Sanctions have no justification whatsoever, especially when they are imposed illegally, unjustifiably, and selectively. Therefore, we strongly oppose all sanctions, and I believe the international community should collectively take a stand. We express our position in our national capacity regarding sanctions imposed on us - and not just on us.
Sanctions were imposed on us in 1992 based on the fabricated claim that we were blocking Armenia, even though our territories were under Armenian occupation at the time. These sanctions were lifted in 2001 when the United States needed to transport goods by air, land, and sea through Azerbaijan to Afghanistan. Each year, the President of the United States, regardless of party affiliation, would waive these sanctions until the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. After that, the sanctions were reinstated. When I called them ungrateful, I believe that was not the harshest term that could be used in this context.
