11:51 - 2.02.2021

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February 2, Fineko/abc.az. President Ilham Aliyev gave an interview to Azerbaijani television on 1 February.

ABC.AZ reports that during the interview the head of state harshly criticized some high-ranking government officials.

The country’s leader expressed his critical opinion about State Customs Committee’s chairman Safar Mehdiyev, AZAL’s president Jahangir Askerov and State Motor Road Agency’s chairman of board Saleh Mammadov. The president said:

"I’ve declared the city of Shusha the cultural capital of our country. Everyone knows this, and this decision was highly appreciated. Shusha will become one of the cultural capitals not only of Azerbaijan, the region, but, perhaps, of the world. Azeravtoyol’s head applied with a request on the occasion of opening of a regional center of his organization in Shusha. For what? If you need to make a road, make it. No one lays the road at his own expense, the State allocates the budget. Regional center Azeravtoyol has nothing to do in Shusha. He wants to create conditions for himself, to seize this land, to build an estate for himself, to fence it, to put a watchman and yes, to stop there during trips and admire nature. AZAL - its head also addressed to me in connection with the fact that they want to create some kind of AZAL structure in Shusha. This is absurd. I told him the right words just stay where you are. Then the State Customs Committee appealed in connection with the establishment of the Karabakh Regional Center in Shusha. Is there a border in Shusha so that there should be created a regional customs center?»