As reported earlier, Azerbaijani army has been deployed to the strategic city of Lachin in Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev announced Friday.
Later, accompanied by a group of soldiers, Maj. Gen. Kanan Seyidov, the commander of the army corps, said that the Azerbaijani military has taken full control of the city of Lachin, as well as the villages of Zabukh and Sus, in line with the directives of the president.
Meanwhile, after three decades, families who were summarily ejected from their homes in Zabukh, Lachin and Sus will, at last, have a chance to reclaim their properties and restart their community lives in the lands of their ancestors.
Although thirty years have elapsed, the Azerbaijanis who once lived in these places have never for one moment forgotten the homes of their childhood. We talked to 72-year-old Meher Quliyev, who was born and raised in Zabukh like his father and grandfather before him. Though now settled in Baku, he says he is “very sure that I will return to my place, my village, and my homeland.”
“In 1992, when Armenians occupied our village, all my fellow villagers and I were ejected at gun-point… we had to leave behind 800 head of livestock [a major financial loss]… All our property was destroyed, and many people were killed and wounded.” “For 30 years, we have been living as refugees in someone else's house,” yet “now, respecting international rules, we offer them the chance to leave in peace.”
The scars of a protracted conflict will take a long time to heal, and rebuilding is bound to be tough, but for people like Meher, there’s no time to waste.
Note, Russian peacekeepers and the Armenian population have left the areas along the route known as the Lachin Corridor, where Lachin, Zabuh, and Sus are located. The area was temporarily put under Russian control in line with the tripartite declaration signed by Moscow, Baku and Yerevan on Nov. 10, 2020, following 44 days of the second Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
As part of the declaration, Azerbaijan built a 32-kilometer (20-mile) road passing around Lachin for the Armenian population in Karabakh to use on their way to and from Armenia.
Russian peacekeepers providing security on the route of the old Lachin Corridor were required to move the checkpoints to the new road.
Lachin and its villages were occupied by the Armenian army in 1992, and then Armenians brought from Syria and Lebanon were settled there in the following years.
Throughout the process, Azerbaijan has declared that it sees this as a war crime and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
