Senior official says Azerbaijan to continue army-building

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

The Azerbaijani Army will continue to justify the trust of the Azerbaijani people and the state, Presidential Aide Maharram Aliyev said in an interview with Sia.az website on June 24.  

“The victorious Azerbaijani Army will continue to honorably justify the trust of our people and the state, increase military discipline, step up combat and moral and psychological training, and will be ready to fulfill other orders and assignments by Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev any time,” the presidential aide said.

He said the army-building process that started during former President Heydar Aliyev, is successfully continued under President Ilham Aliyev through consistent and systematic reforms.

Reminding that Azerbaijan will celebrate the 103th anniversary of The Day of the Armed Forces on June 26, the official said that the decision to celebrate this day was made in 1998 by Heydar Aliyev.   

Speaking about last year’s 44-day Patriotic War that saw Azerbaijan liberate its Armenian-occupied territories, Maharram Aliyev said that “Azerbaijani Armed Forces, one of the most powerful armies in the world, set an example of a new generation of warfare with perfect combat tactics.”

Strengthening the combat capability of the Armed Forces, the development of the defense industry by producing more effective weapons and military equipment, further improvement of social and living conditions of servicemen are among the priorities, Aliyev added.

He also emphasized the importance of military-strategic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkey and the signing of the Shusha Declaration on June 15, 2020, saying that this is “a historic document that will make an important contribution to raising the relations between our countries to a qualitatively new level.”

He stressed that the signing of the Shusha Declaration, which is extremely important in terms of prospects for military-strategic cooperation between the two countries, strengthens defense capabilities and security, ensures coordination of relevant structures, holding of joint exercises and the development of defense industry technologies.