The President of Azerbaijan says we are closer than ever to peace with Armenia.
A few days after Armenia returned several villages, the President of Azerbaijan stated that his country is closer than ever to peace with Armenia. On Tuesday, April 24th, Ilham Aliyev said, ‘Now we have reached a mutual understanding on how to achieve peace.’
Azerbaijani citizens who lived in the four returned villages had fled about three decades ago during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, and during this period, all four villages—Eskipara, Ayrum, Kherimli, and Qizil Hajili in the Gazakh region—remained uninhabited.
However, these villages are strategically very crucial because they are located right on the route of part of the Armenia-Georgia highway, and on the other hand, the pipeline for exporting Russian gas to Armenia also passes near these villages.
Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, in response to protests, has said that these villages belong to the Republic of Azerbaijan, and we are not giving them anything from our land, and our territorial integrity is not compromised.