Iranian, Georgian delegations visit liberated Aghdam

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Delegations from Iran and Georgia are visiting Azerbaijan's Aghdam region liberated from Armenia's occupation in 2020, Trend reported on September 23.

The Iranian delegation is led by Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Kazem, who arrived in Azerbaijan on September 21, to attend trilateral meetings of heads of research centers between Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey.

In the meantime, a group of journalists and bloggers from Georgia views the Imaret complex, which houses the palace of the founder of the Karabakh Khanate, Panahali Khan. The guests were informed about the acts of vandalism committed by Armenia during the period of occupation against the cultural, historical, and religious monuments of Azerbaijan.

Occupied by Armenian forces in 1993, Aghdam is known as the Hiroshima of the Caucasus for the level of destruction during the three decades of occupation.

As a result of ecological terror committed by Armenia through the use of banned chemical weapons and deliberate mass fires, the environment in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, including freshwater sources, has been physically and chemically polluted, various rare plant and animal species were destroyed and the cessation of the process of self-regulation in rivers and lakes, which has turned the water basins into a dead zone, harmful to all living organisms. 

Armenia's aggression and illegal occupation caused irreparable damages to Azerbaijan's cultural heritage, which includes thousands of cultural values, including monuments of the world and national importance, mosques, temples, mausoleums, museums, art galleries, sites of archaeological excavations, libraries and rare manuscripts.

At the same time, Armenia deliberately and constantly planted mines on Azerbaijani territories, in violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention, thereby being a major threat to regional peace, security and cooperation.

A Moscow-brokered ceasefire deal that Baku and Yerevan signed on November 10, 2020, brought an end to six weeks of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani army declared a victory against the Armenian troops. The signed agreement obliged Armenia to withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied since the early 1990s.

The peace agreement stipulated the return of Azerbaijan's Armenian-occupied Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions and withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied since the early 1990s. Before the signing of the deal, the Azerbaijani army had liberated around 300 villages, settlements, city centers, and historic Shusha city.