Azerbaijan leader to run for re-election in 2024: party

BAKU

Azerbaijan's ruling party on Friday nominated incumbent President Ilham Aliyev for re-election next year, a move expected to extend the decades-long rule of the Aliyev family.

The 61-year-old has governed the energy-rich country since 2003, when he succeeded his father, Heydar, a former KGB officer and Communist-era boss.

Aliyev last week called the snap leadership contest for February 7 next year. Presidential elections had previously been scheduled for 2025.

His popularity is soaring after Azerbaijan's military recaptured the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenian separatists in a lightning offensive in September.

On Friday, Aliyev's Yeni Azerbaijan party nominated him for re-election during the party's governing council meeting, an AFP journalist reported.

"This is a decision not only of our party, but of the entire people," the party's deputy chairman, Ali Akhmedov, said at the meeting.

"Over the 20 years of his rule, Ilham Aliyev accomplished all the wishes of our people," he added.

Aliyev sent troops to Karabakh on September 19 and after just one day of fighting the Armenian separatist forces that had controlled the disputed region for three decades laid down arms and agreed to reintegrate with Baku.

Azerbaijan's victory marked the end of the territorial dispute, which saw Azerbaijan and Armenia fight two wars — in 2020 and the 1990s — that have claimed tens of thousands of lives from both sides.

The countries are now negotiating a comprehensive peace treaty, but the Western-mediated talks have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.