Azeri President Ilham Aliyev

Says Armenia is a Country of No Value

BAKU—Azeri President Ilham Aliyev took to Twitter to unleash an anti-Armenian tirade after remarks he made over the weekend calling the Armenian lobby the number one enemy of Azerbaijan.

Aliyev caused an Internet storm today after his official Twitter account posted a tirade of several dozen sharply worded statements against Armenia, reported Agence France Presse.

Most of the brief messages were recycled from a long speech Aliyev gave last weeked, but the sudden broadside of inflammatory tweets posted Tuesday afternoon prompted a top Armenian lawmaker to compare the messages with Nazi German propaganda.

“The Armenian lobby is our main enemy and we are the main enemy for them,” said Aliyev’s official Twitter account, @presidentaz.

“Armenia is a country of no value. It is actually a colony, an outpost run from abroad…. Evidence of this is the mass exodus of people from Armenia to other countries,” another tweet read.

“Azerbaijan grows stronger and more powerful by the year, while Armenia weakens and declines every year,” Aliyev said in a further tweet.

The tirade drew a furious reaction from Armenian parliament deputy chairman Eduard Sharmazanov, who called Aliyev a “totalitarian leader of a totalitarian state”.

“Aliyev shows by his cynical proclamations that there are still supporters of fascism in the 21st century, and that this ideology flourishes thanks to leaders like him,” Sharmazanov told AFP.

“His remarks recall the 1930s-1940s and (Nazi leader Adolf) Hitler,” he added.

He gave the 40-minute-long speech that inspired Tuesday’s Twitter frenzy to his New Azerbaijan Party to mark the 20th anniversary of its establishment.

Reacting to the furor, senior Azerbaijan administration official Ali Hasanov did not attempt to soften the rhetoric, saying Aliyev had “laid out the facts and realities of modern day Armenia” in his speech.

“All of Armenia’s resources are directed at supporting the separatist (Karabakh) regime on Azerbaijan’s occupied territories,” he said, calling Armenia a country with an agenda driven by outside forces.