According to the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, 140,000 people are expected to return to Karabakh by 2026 as part of the State Program on the Great Return to the liberated territories.
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On July 21, during his speech at the global media forum in the city of Shusha, Aliyev pointed out that the government of Azerbaijan has approved the master plans of more than 30 cities and villages, and the foundations of many villages have already been laid.
“We will return more than 150,000 people to both Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur within the next three years. Now we are at the preliminary stage of the work, as they say, because the design takes a long time, and the tender procedures take a long time. I am sure that the former IDPs understand this.
In the Karabakh region alone, 140,000 people are expected to return by 2026. I already hope that next year the first residents will arrive and settle down in the city of Shusha.
We really want people who have suffered morally and physically for 30 years to be provided with the best conditions,” Stated Aliyev.
According to the President of Azerbaijan, the government's task, in the first stage, is to rebuild 8 cities and about 100 villages. Projected expenditures for infrastructure and urban development under the Great Return Program will be approximately $7 billion by the end of the year.
“One million people who suffered from the occupation must return to their ancestral lands. I should also mention that before we started the restoration work, we conducted an informal survey among the former IDPs to find out whether they intend to return to their ancestral lands or not. The good news is that the absolute majority of IDPs gave an affirmative answer,” added Aliyev.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought two wars in Nagorno-Karabakh - in the 1990s and in the fall of 2020. The six-week war in 2020, which claimed the lives of more than 6,500 soldiers on both sides, ended with a Russian-brokered deal. Under the agreement, Armenia ceded part of the territory it had controlled for decades. The city of Shusha [in Armenian – Shushi] is the center of the district of the same name, and since 1992, it has been under the control of the Armenians before the second war of Karabakh.
