Zakir Hasanov (6 June 1959-) was Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan from 22 October 2013, succeeding Safar Abiyev.
Biography[]
Zakir Hasanov was born in Astara, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union in 1959, and he served as a Soviet Army artillery officer in East Germany from 1980 to 1985 and in Siberia from 1985 to 1991. He went on to rise in the ranks of newly-independent Azerbaijan's military, and he became Minister of Defense in 2013 and presided over various clashes with Armenia and Artsakh for control of Nagorno-Karabakh before overseeing the successful Azerbaijani offensive at the start of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.