Najmeddin Sadikov

Najmeddin Huseyn oghlu Sadikov (Azerbaijani: Nəcməddin Hüseyn oğlu Sadıkov; born May 24, 1956) is an Azerbaijani Colonel General who served as the incumbent Chief of the General Staff of Azerbaijani Armed Forces and the First Deputy Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan. He was appointed to both positions on November 2, 1993 by President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev. It was announced that he was not serving as the chief of staff on 28 January 2021, and Karim Valiyev took his position on 23 July of that year.

On 28 January 2021, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry confirmed the dismissal of Sadikov, saying that he no longer serves in the Azerbaijani army. It was earlier reported that he had serious health problems and underwent open-heart surgery in Moscow. Later, his name was removed from the official website of the ministry.

His critics allege that Sadikov, who despite being ethnically Azeri, does not know the Azerbaijani language because he was born in Dagestan, and therefore all documents on his desk are first translated from Azerbaijani into Russian by special services. In early October 2020, Azeri press circles spread rumors on the arrest of Sadikov, who was accused of treason. Investigators claimed that he was recruited by the Russian special services through a nephew in Russia. Later, this information was refuted, and the media reported that Sadikov was sidelined at the beginning of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war due to his dissatisfaction with the widespread presence of the Turkish Armed Forces in the administrative level of the Azerbaijani military.

During the July 2020 Azerbaijani protests, the protesters chanted slogans "Najmaddin resign". The demonstrators demanded his resignation due to him being suspected of acting as a sleeper agent for the Armenian Army, in which he leaked the coordinates of General Polad Hashimov during mini skirmishes that month. Sadigov served as a pallbearer at his funeral.

He has also been accused of having a good relationship with Armenian officials, with many pointing to a photo of Sadikov and Armenian general Mikael Harutyunyan laughing at a NATO summit in 2008 as a reason to be distrustful of Sadikov.

He joined the Azerbaijani Army on 1 February 1992. After its creation on 3 March 1992, Sadikov became the first commander of the 1st Army Corps. He led the corps during the failed Battle of Kalbajar. On 2 November 1993, he was appointed as Chief of the General Staff. Up until his dismissal, he was the longest serving chief of defence in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Sadikov was a member of the Commission on National Security Policies which prepares and develops documents on national security concepts, foreign policy strategies and military doctrines of Azerbaijan Republic. According to the Presidential Decree No. 858 from June 24, 2005 he was promoted to the rank of Colonel General.

Sadikov was born in the city of Derbent to an ethnic Azeri family. He has a brother who died in the 1980s. After the outbreak of hostilities in 1991, he moved to Azerbaijan with his family. He is married and has three children. Sadikov’s nephew, Ramil Asgarov, is another senior military official, who was major general until June 2020.

He joined the Soviet Armed Forces in 1975. He graduated from the Baku Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1979 and earned the “Gold medal”. He served as a platoon commander, a company commander, a battalion commander and regiment deputy commander in the Soviet Army from 1979 to 1992. He graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow in 1988, and completed the Higher Officer Courses "Vystrel" ("Shot") named after Marshal of the Soviet Union Boris Shaposhnikov in 1991.