DM Monitoring
Baku: Azerbaijan’s president and first lady visited territories recently liberated from nearly three decades of Armenian occupation, according to the Azerbaijani Presidency.
Ilham Aliyev and Mehriban Aliyeva, who is also the country’s first vice president, visited Fuzuli and Jabrayil regions. Aliyeva shared several short video clips on her Instagram page of the president driving a car in the liberated territories, mainly near the border with Iran and the Aras River. Hikmet Hajiyev, an assistant to Azerbaijan’s president, also shared footage of Aliyev on Twitter.
“President Ilham Aliyev and 1st Lady Mehriban Aliyeva are in center of Jabrayil after liberation. Everything razed to ground. Magnitude of Armenia’s vandalism is beyond any imagination. President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that all-out reconstruction work will be conducted,” he said. Pointing to homes destroyed by Armenia, President Aliyev said he understands the magnitude of Armenia’s ferocity when he sees the destruction. “Nov. 16 will remain as a significant day in my life,” Aliyev said. Relations between the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
New clashes erupted on Sept. 27 and the Armenian army continued its attacks on civilian and Azerbaijani forces for 44 days, even violating three humanitarian cease-fire agreements. Azerbaijan liberated several cities and nearly 300 of its settlements and villages from Armenian occupation in the past few weeks.
On Nov. 10, the two countries signed a Russia-brokered agreement to end fighting and work toward a comprehensive resolution. Turkey welcomed the truce as a “great victory” for Azerbaijan. Following the Russian-brokered peace deal signed between Yerevan and Baku, Armenian residents in the occupied areas had until Nov. 15 to leave the area, but that date was extended by another 10 days on humanitarian grounds.
