Azerbaijan will not allow any country to interfere in its internal affairs, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Wednesday.

The president made the remarks at the meeting with representatives of the country’s general public and religious figures at Imamzade religious complex in Ganja.

President Aliyev mentioned that 2016 has been declared the Year of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan, recalling the first-ever European Games to be held in Azerbaijan in 2015 and the Islamic Solidarity games to be held in the country in 2017.

“All of these have contributed to global and regional stability. We’re going our way, without interfering in the affairs of other countries — not even thinking of it,” the head of state said, noting that Azerbaijan will not allow any country to interfere in its internal affairs.

“We won’t deviate from this path despite pressures and threats. Thus, we have our own say. When the situation is hard, we are giving advises and offering our own sample. We are not issuing statements just to criticize someone. We say how this issue was solved in our country. Why is it possible in Azerbaijan? Why could the Azerbaijani people unite for a common goal? Why are people killing each other for artificial reasons in other countries? The majority of those fighting in the Middle East don’t realize for whom and whose interests they are fighting for. They are shedding blood of their brothers, destroying the cities so that they couldn’t be reconstructed from now on. Why? The reason is promotion, external influence and weakness in the power. No external force can influence the will of the government, where power is strong, united with the

People,” the president emphasized.

Azerbaijan is a country that has its own say and pursues its policy, he said calling the people of Azerbaijan a source of the country’s strength.

The president went on to add that in the early 1990s Azerbaijan faced a humanitarian disaster which resulted in more than a million people becoming refugees and IDPs, noting the country got over this crisis on its own.

“People suffering from foreign intervention in the world, especially in the Middle East, are heading to Europe, enduring huge hardship and facing dangers. And there they are often abused and humiliated,” President Aliyev concluded.

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