President Aliyev: Aside from Aghdam, there are hundreds of thousands of mines in other Azerbaijani districts

Azerbaijan managed to get minefield maps from Armenia only for Aghdam district, there are hundreds of thousands of mines in other districts, President Ilham Aliyev said as he received High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) Miguel Angel Moratinos.

“When I visited Aghdam for the first time after the war, I felt both sadness and sorrow, and at the same time the feeling of decisiveness but to rebuild the city. You have probably been informed that in less than a month, we already launched the process of reconstruction. As you saw, everything has been destroyed. At the same time, there are 97,000 mines only in Aghdam district. We managed to get minefield maps from Armenia only for Aghdam district. There are hundreds of thousands of mines in other districts,” the head of state said.

President Aliyev noted that Armenia still refuses to give Azerbaijan all maps.  

"After the war stopped, almost 30 people were killed, and more than 100 civilians were severely injured from land mines, anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, including two journalists who died in the beginning of this month,” he said.  

“As you know, they destroyed the cities not during the war, the first Karabakh war, but after it. They destroyed them systematically within almost 30 years after the first Karabakh war stopped, for several reasons. First, in order to take all these construction materials, because the houses were demolished and the stones were taken away. It was a kind of a robbery. And second, in order not to allow Azerbaijanis to return, because they thought that after this total devastation nobody would return. It is not only in the cities, but also in the villages. If you go in other directions, for example, to Jabrayil, Zangilan or Gubadli – you also visited Fuzuli, the situation is exactly the same. All villages, all cities are destroyed. We need to clear them of mines now and start reconstruction," the president added.

He stressed that the Azerbaijani side has already accumulated all its efforts and mobilized its resources. “Big infrastructure projects have already started. Probably you have been informed about that. We will rebuild all our lands, and I think we will demonstrate a unique experience in the world – from this kind of devastation to development and decent living standards for people,” President Aliyev concluded.

News.Az 

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