President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met with residents of the villages of Ashaghi Oratagh, Childiran, Heyvali, and Chapar in Ashaghi Oratagh village of the Aghdara district on January 13.
The residents warmly welcomed the head of state.
Addressing the meeting, President Ilham Aliyev said: “You have been settled in four villages of the Aghdara district for three days now. I congratulate you on this occasion. I have visited all these villages — Chapar, Heyvali, Childiran, and Ashaghi Oratagh. The houses have been beautifully repaired and restored. Over the past two years, we have conducted monitoring in all settlements and villages of the liberated Aghdara district. In the first phase, we identified the villages to be restored, and former internally displaced persons have already returned to nine villages in the district.
The ordeal of many long years is now behind us; justice and righteousness have triumphed with victory. Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Azerbaijanis have returned to their ancestral lands and will live here with pride, happily, and comfortably. I am confident that from now on there will be no more war. The Azerbaijani state is a strong state. What makes us strong is our people — our nation united like a fist.
Over the past two years — since the anti-terror operation in 2023 — life has been restored across these regions: Aghdara, Khojaly, Khankendi, and Khojavend. Five years ago, displaced persons began returning to other formerly occupied territories. Today, already 73,000 people — both former internally displaced persons and those who are working, employed, or studying in the liberated territories — have settled there. Every month, the number of citizens returning to Garabagh increases. All necessary conditions have been created here: electricity, water, gas, roads, and jobs.
Today, we marked the opening of the hydroelectric power plant with a capacity of nearly 15 megawatts in the village of Gozlukorpu. This region is now fully supplied with electricity, and the energy produced here is also transmitted to other parts of Azerbaijan. Roads are being built and expanded from here to Tartar and up to Kalbajar.
Today, I also reviewed the operations of the ‘Damirli’ Ore Processing Complex, where nearly 1,000 jobs are being created. There will be no problem with employment. Both the state and the private sector are creating conditions. At the same time, taking advantage of this beautiful and refreshing nature, it is essential to engage in agriculture, animal husbandry, beekeeping, and fruit growing so that you can live here comfortably and prosperously.
May Allah rest the souls of all our martyrs in peace. Thanks to their sacrifice, and to the heroism and bravery of our valiant fighters, we stand on this land today. We will forever cherish the sacred memory of our martyrs in our hearts. I must also note that we avenged their blood on the battlefield; it has not gone unanswered. During the years of occupation, we heard and repeated these words many times and lived with these aspirations. The loss of our lands and the martyrdom of so many of our heroes caused deep pain to our nation, but it did not break us. We did not bow down. We demonstrated our will and, on the battlefield, both avenged our martyrs and reclaimed our lands. Over the past 80 years, no other country has achieved a victory as complete and absolute as that of Azerbaijan.
There have been many wars and conflicts, and they continue even today, but none of them have ended in a full and absolute Victory. Yet we, as a great nation, achieved exactly that — in just 44 days, and then in one more day. We divided our glorious Victory and Victory march into two stages, while also protecting our youth. Because if the war had not stopped on November 10, 2020, we might have had to sacrifice thousands more martyrs — including here, in these mountains of Aghdara, Kalbajar, and Lachin, as well as the mined corridors of Aghdam. We protected them; we did not sacrifice them. At the same time, we knew that the day would come when we would reclaim all of Garabagh, restore our territorial integrity, expel the vile enemy from our lands, and achieve complete Victory. Today, standing here together with you — with a martyr’s mother on one side and a respected woman elder on the other — this is a deeply happy feeling, a happy day, a beautiful day. I sincerely congratulate you. May you live happily here. Thank you.
x x x
The meeting continued with commemorative photographs.
x x x
President Ilham Aliyev continued: “Of course, we will have many more meetings. Today, the new Master Plan for the city of Aghdara will be presented to me. We will rebuild Aghdara just as we have already revitalized nine villages. The city itself will be reconstructed and transformed into a beautiful industrial and tourism center. These refreshing places are a delight to the eye — mountains, forests, fresh air, springs, and rivers everywhere. That is why the future development of Aghdara will be very bright. The occupiers left virtually no building intact in this area. Look at all these restored buildings today — they have been rebuilt by the state. Meanwhile, the occupiers engaged in looting. From the Damirli ore deposit, they perhaps took copper worth 2 billion dollars, or even more. This was looting — illegal exploitation. Now we have returned, and operations have been reestablished there. As I mentioned, more than 900, and up to approximately 1,000, jobs will be created. Moreover, I have instructed that the employees there should come from this region. Additional investments will certainly be made to expand the project further.”
Agriculture, tourism — in other words, this is a natural paradise. But the vile enemy devastated it, leaving not one stone upon another. Every year, they collected hundreds of millions from Armenian organizations, yet they did not invest a single manat or dollar here; they looted everything. They burned our homes, displaced you, displaced 1 million people, and razed Aghdam, Fuzuli, Zangilan, and Gubadli to the ground. They illegally settled in Kalbajar, Lachin, and Khojaly. They even gave Khojaly an ugly name, but none of it stuck. Because the rightful owners of these lands are us; we have returned, and we are building and creating.
From now on, we will live only as a victorious and proud people. Inshallah.”
The residents expressed their gratitude to the President.
