Azerbaijan starts return of people to recaptured areas
Zangilan, Azerbaijan – (AFP):
Azerbaijan on Tuesday began the process of returning its people to land recaptured from Armenian separatists in what Baku calls “The Great Return” following a 2020 war over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.
The oil-rich country has vowed to repopulate lands recaptured in the six-week war with arch-foe Caucasus neighbour Armenia that killed more than 6,500 people two years ago.
President Ilham Aliyev had for years promised to retake lands lost in the 1990s and the first returns marked a symbolic moment for Azerbaijan.
In the autumn of 2020, Azerbaijan and Armenia went to war for a second time for control of Karabakh.
The fighting ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades, and Russia deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.
Following its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, an increasingly isolated Moscow lost its status as the primary mediator in the conflict.
The European Union has since led the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process, which involves peace talks, border delimitation and the reopening of transport links.
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