Azerbaijan will bring 800 thousand people back to Karabakh

The plan is to bring 20 thousand more internal refugees back to the de-occupied territories until 2025. This information was voiced by Elchin Amirbekov, the special assignments Presidential envoy of Azerbaijan, when speaking at the 3^rd International conference on demining.

He emphasized that the liberated territories became the venue of massive reconstruction, and often that is done practically from scratch.

Global plans of Azerbaijan 

Igor Korotchenko, the General Director of the Caspian Institute for Strategic Studies (Russia), a political analyst, in his interview to the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza draws the attention of the audience to the extremely high pace of rehabilitation of the liberated territories of Azerbaijan. In his opinion, it demonstrates Baku’s commitment to fully revitalize Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur within the shortest possible period of time.

«Noone in modern history has demonstrated such high pace of building infrastructure and residences on the lands completely devastated by wars and occupation. Of course, it became possible thanks to huge investment of Baku into the reconstruction of the liberated areas. As is known, Azerbaijan is not only a sovereign state, but a country with very good financial and economic situation. The national authorities demonstrate skillful spending of the funds received mainly from the oil sector of the economy, as well as astute insight of their economic policy, because in the rehabilitated territories they are preparing various production sites outside of the petroleum industry including green energy», he said. 

«Azerbaijan is fully consistent in its efforts to rehabilitate Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur. The first thing they started with was transport infrastructure in all the liberated territories, as it is the foundation for all other works. Two international airports were built, and the construction of the third one is still in progress. The first airport in Fuzuli is capable of receiving aircrafts of any kinds and is certified according to all the ICAO standards. This work continues: the roads are being built and the tunnels are driven, i.e., the transportation network is being created allowing for communications, for carrying cargos, people and machinery», Igor Korotchenko emphasized. 

«At the same time, the threat of mines remains a big challenge. The Armenian gunmen left hundreds of square kilometers of continuous minefields. By various estimates, there are up to 2-3 mln mines. All this requires demining, otherwise, people will not be able to return to their homes. Unfortunately, there are extensive casualties, when herdsmen and other Azerbaijan civilians strike a mine. However, it should be emphasized, that the locals are brought back only to completely demined settlements, so their safety is ensured», CISS Director said.

«Practically, the entire Karabakh today is one big construction site. The best companies are engaged. I would like to highlight the big efforts undertaken by Heydar Aliyev Foundation. It is performing a special mission of restoring the historical heritage of Azerbaijanian people. The Foundation is doing that not just carefully, but very responsibly: the architectural masterpieces of the past are coming alive again literally from ashes, even though they seemed to be lost for Azerbaijanian culture forever. Mosques and eminent buildings connected with the key moments of the history of Azerbaijan are brough back to life by Heydar Aliyev Foundation. Such work deserves extremely high appraisal, including at the international level», Igor Korotchenko emphasized. 

«Overall, everything that Azerbaijan is doing today constitutes a great humanitarian mission. I believe, the project of revival of Karabakh needs international support. There are already cases in place when Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan invested in building schools in the liberated territories. I hope, Russian companies will also get engaged into this process, because there is a huge scope of activities here, and there is still much work ahead. It is very likely that the entire Karabakh with time will turn into a unique venue and will become a real Mecca for tourists», the political analyst concluded.