President Ilham Aliyev: In the first years of independence, Azerbaijan was faced with many threats and severe tests

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev

© APA | Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev

# 18 October 2021 14:09 (UTC +04:00)

"On 18 October 1991, Azerbaijan obtained the opportunity to gain independence for the second time in the 20th century and declared to the world that it was the successor of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic with the Constitutional Act “On State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan," said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in his address to the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the restoration of independence, APA reports.

"In the first years of independence, Azerbaijan was faced with many threats and severe tests. Internal strife, arbitrariness and incompetence in public administration, as well as a severe political and economic crisis, brought the country to the brink of civil war and called its future into question. It was under these conditions that the Azerbaijani lands were occupied by the Armenian armed forces and hundreds of thousands of our fellow compatriots were expelled from their ancestral lands. What was happening was further evidence of the fact that it is far more difficult to preserve independence than to gain it," the head of the state noted.

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