ELYA AGHAJANYAN
his inauguration speech , Ilham Aliyev has made it clear that they are going to settle the NK issue “ at any cost ” 67 . In his opinion , to resolve the issue “ at any cost ,” Azerbaijan needed to be strong . Aliyev believed that Armenia is a country with profound economic and social problems . All they needed was to make Azerbaijan stronger , which could have isolated Armenia and depleted its material and demographic resources further . Besides , following a year after the elections , Ilham Aliyev declared that Armenia should realize that the NK issue will “ certainly aggravate its own serious internal social and economic problems .” 68 However , one may notice that at this stage , several events like the Prague Peace Process and the Madrid Principles , where the hybrid approach towards the peaceful settlement of the conflict emerged even though Azerbaijan has always been in favor of the phased solution . Was this because of Aliyev being inexperienced or just because of his perception that Azerbaijan was not strong enough to “ dictate ” its maximalist ideas ? Hence , this conditioned the first stage of his conflict management strategies in 2003- 2008 , which aimed to make Azerbaijan stronger .
The second stage began in the mid-2000s until 2016 , when Azerbaijan experienced unprecedented economic growth , becoming one of the fastest-growing economies in the world when its GDP skyrocketed in 2005 and 2006 and gradually declined . 69 Multiple factors contributed to this economic growth , such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan ( BTS ) pipeline and the deal of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum ( BTE ) pipeline in 2007 . 70 Additionally , according to the data of British Petroleum , the oil production of Azerbaijan peaked up in 2010 , and since then , it has declined gradually . 71 At this time , Azerbaijan has twice doubled its military expenditures in 2006 ( 868 US $ m ) and 2011 ( 20 US $ b ). 72
67 Ilham Aliyev , Speech in the Inauguration Ceremony , October 31 , 2003 , https :// lib . aliyev-heritage . org / en / 2773818 . html . 68 Ilham Aliyev , General Assembly Speech , September 24 , 2004 ,
https :// www . chathamhouse . org / expert / comment / how-ready-are-armenia-and-azerbaijanpeace . 69 “ GDP Growth of Azerbaijan ,” World Bank , 1991-2019 , 2019 .
https :// data . worldbank . org / indicator / NY . GDP . MKTP . KD . ZG ? locations = AZ ( accessed September 20 , 2020 ). 70 Şaban Kardaş , The Turkey-Azerbaijan Energy Partnership in the Context of the
Southern Corridor , Institution of International Affairs , Working Papers 14 , Roma , 2014 . 71 “ Statistical Review of World Energy ,” BP ,
https :// www . bp . com / en / global / corporate / energy-economics / statistical-review-of-worldenergy . html ( accessed September 20 , 2020 ). 72 “ Military Expenditures by Country ,” SIPRI ,
https :// www . sipri . org / sites / default / files / Data % 20for % 20all % 20countries % 20from % 2019 70