I have already stated that the consequences of the Second Karabakh War and the anti-terror operation should be taken very seriously in Armenia. The ongoing armament of Armenia is, of course, a new threat factor for the South Caucasus.

Axar.az reports that this was stated by President Ilham Aliyev during an interview with local television channels on January 7.

"I have already said this and I want to say it again that we cannot simply watch this as observers and do nothing. I have also repeatedly stated this to the Armenian leadership that this may create a new threat. At the same time, those who seem to be standing behind Armenia today and inciting them to new provocations and sabotage against Azerbaijan will most likely not stand behind them until the end. Just as they could not stand in 2020 and beyond. Not because they do not want to stand, but because Azerbaijan simply will not provide these opportunities. Therefore, a significant part of the state budget of Azerbaijan will be spent on military and security issues. I have already said this once: we are spending 4 billion manats on the restoration of Karabakh and East Zangezur and 8.4 billion manats on resolving military and security issues. It could have been completely different. Because Armenia's arms race forces us to attract financial resources to military issues other than the main ones. I also stated that Armenia cannot compete with us in the arms race. However, we must also take into account one issue here. These weapons are given to Armenia either for free or in the form of loans. Those loans are also written off after a certain period and also from the European Union's notorious peace facility. Notorious, because the peace facility should actually be used for peace purposes. Their peace facility is aimed at armament. The first payment was made from there, and according to the information we have, this is not the last payment.

Another disturbing fact is that in April of last year, for the first time in history, a very strange cooperation platform was created - America, the European Union and Armenia. As you know, the US Secretary of State, the President of the European Commission and the Foreign Minister, and the Prime Minister of Armenia met in Brussels and actually reached an agreement on a new cooperation. According to the information we have, the agreement reached before this meeting also included a military component, but after that it was officially removed from there, but de facto it remains there. This, in fact, excluded both the European Commission and the United States of America from the Azerbaijan-Armenia normalization process. We have already informed them about this. If any party takes sides, it cannot be a fair mediator. That is why the request of the US Secretary of State remained in the air last month and Azerbaijan did not agree to a trilateral meeting. In addition, as you know, many meetings were held in Brussels at the initiative of the presidents of the European Commission and the Council of the European Union. This has now also been stopped. So we are in favor of a bilateral negotiation format, and of course, Azerbaijan will defend its position as a party to this issue," the head of the state noted.