Azerbaijan Set To Retake Control Of Lachin, Other Armenian Areas

Azerbaijan will retake control of the city of Lachin and some villages on the route between Khankendi and Armenia at the end of this month.

This is in accordance with a joint declaration signed by Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

It was reported by the Daily Sabah on Tuesday that Russian troops and the Armenian population will leave the areas along the route known as the "Lachin corridor," where Lachin and the villages of Zabuh and Sus are located.

The areas were temporarily put under Russian control in accordance with the tripartite declaration signed between the three countries on November 10, 2020.

According to the declaration, Azerbaijan would build a new road passing outside Lachin which the Armenian population in Karabakh would use on their way to and from Armenia within three years. Azerbaijan completed the 32-kilometre road earlier than planned.

Russian forces providing security on the route of the old Lachin corridor will also move the checkpoints to the new road.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said he ordered the State Committee for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons to contact the original inhabitants of the city of Lachin and the villages of Zabuh and Sus and to start work to return them to their ancestral homeland.