TSAMTO, November 10th. A military parade dedicated to the 5th anniversary of victory in the Second Karabakh War was held on November 8 at Azadlig Square in Baku, RIA Novosti reports.
The Presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey, Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, were on the podium. The parade was also observed by the Minister of Defense of the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and the head of the Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan, Lieutenant General Dauren Kosanov.
At the beginning of the parade, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov gave a report to the heads of state, and the national anthems of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan were played.
After the speeches of Aliyev, Erdogan and Sharif, the passage of the armed forces personnel began. Soldiers of the special forces, rocket and artillery troops, marines, units of the border and internal troops, and the state security service of Azerbaijan marched in front of the stands. A group of Turkish and Pakistani military personnel marched separately. For the first time, the parade column of troops of the unmanned systems of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces took place.
Following this, military equipment in service with the Azerbaijani army was demonstrated. At the military parade in Baku, for the first time, Vashag special operations vehicles, Cobra-2 armored medical evacuation equipment, an Azerbaijani-made Viking mobile combat system for combating air targets, a Kaira kamikaze naval drone, the fifth-generation Ice Breaker cruise missile system, as well as 370-mm high-precision operational tactical missile system Predator Hawk.
The newly adopted Nora and Vita long-range self-propelled artillery systems, as well as the HQ-9 long-range anti-aircraft missile system and other equipment were also demonstrated at the parade.
The parade ended with a flight of planes and helicopters of the Azerbaijani Air Force. F-16 fighters of the Turkish Air Force and JF-17 fighters of the Pakistani Air Force also flew over Azadlig Square.
According to ZAMTO, the parade confirmed Azerbaijan's rapidly changing geopolitical orientation and drift towards Turkey.
CAMTO Reference
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1992-1994, Nagorno-Karabakh existed for many years as an unrecognized republic inhabited by Armenians. In September 2020, fighting resumed in the region. The offensive of Azerbaijani troops with the large-scale use of aviation, armored vehicles, artillery, and attack drones (Turkey provided political and military support to Azerbaijan) began on September 27, 2020.
A ceasefire was declared three times in the conflict zone for the exchange of prisoners of war and the bodies of the dead, but each time the parties accused each other of violating the truce, and the fighting resumed.
Only on November 10, 2020, a joint statement was published by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the President of the Russian Federation on the complete cessation of fire and all military operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone from 00:00 Moscow time on November 10, 2020. The peace Agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh, signed on November 9, 2020 by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, provided for the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, the withdrawal of Armenian forces from the areas adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh and the abandonment of the southern part of the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the city of Shusha, under the control of Azerbaijan.
Three years later, on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched an operation in Nagorno-Karabakh to "restore the constitutional order."
The fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) continued on September 19-20 and ended with the signing of a ceasefire agreement mediated by Russian peacekeepers, which provided for the withdrawal of the remaining Armenian military from Nagorno-Karabakh, the disbandment and disarmament of the army of the unrecognized republic and the withdrawal of military equipment. The leadership of the NKR was either arrested or surrendered to the Azerbaijani authorities.
The parties agreed to a cease-fire from 13:00 local time on September 20, 2023.
The result of Azerbaijan's operation to "restore the constitutional order" was a mass exodus of the overwhelming majority of the local Armenian population, and by September 30, more than 100,000 refugees had arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh.
On September 28, 2023, the head of the NKR, Samvel Shahramanyan, signed a decree on the termination of the existence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from January 1, 2024.
