Ilham Aliyev: United States Did Not Push Azerbaijan to Close Gabala Radar

U.S. did not encourage Azerbaijan to close the radar station in Gabala, President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with TV channel "Russia-24".

He explained that the rent for the Gabala radar station was only $ 7 million for 300 hectares in the second most important tourist center of the country. What the country's leadership wanted to charge corresponded to reality. First of all, it could be a compensation for the past ten years, during which Azerbaijan had not raised the issue of revision of prices, even though everyone knew that the price to say was the least, symbolic. In addition, over the last 5-6 years in the military-technical cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia there has been great progress, and the purchase of billions of dollars - Russian military equipment purchased at the world price.

Ilham Aliyev said that the Gabala radar station has no value in Azerbaijan as the received information is not applicable to Azerbaijan. For this reason the resolution of the problem was based on friendly and commercial relations between the two countries. In addition, the Gabala radar was obsolete, both physically and mentally, and in Russia there are modern detection stations, Aliyev said.

According to the President, despite the friendship between the heads of state in the last 100 years in terms of increasing geopolitical influence in world politics, nothing has changed except the forms to ensure their national or global interests. Same methods of persuasion used are almost the same. If it fails, they resort to pressure and even more drastic measures.

 For a while, the countries that gained their independence in the late 1990s were simply not aware of what was really going on. I think that now many of those who have illusions about the welfare, entry into any structure, have a deep disappointment. "There, now and in the past, has been some opposition in the spheres of influence. I think it is perceived by some quarters as very primitive: a sphere of influence - this is where you are saluted. Sphere of influence - this is where you feel good, where you are respected and supported," summarized Ilham Aliyev. -17D-