Azerbaijan to lay multi-kilometre tunnel to Kalbajar

2 March 2021 14:50 (UTC+04:00)

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By Vafa Ismayilova

Azerbaijan will lay a multi-kilometre tunnel to liberated Kalbajar, press secretary of the State Agency of the Azerbaijan Automobile Roads Anar Najafli has said.

Speaking on the state television channel AzTV, Najafli stressed that laying a road to Kalbajar through the Murovdag mountain range with a height of 3,500 metres is one of the significant projects to be launched on the liberated territories.

"It is clear that it is very difficult to climb and descend from Murovdag, and in order to shorten the road through the mountain range, it is planned to lay the 10 to12-kilometre-long tunnel," said the State Agency's spokesman.

Najafli added that the work is currently underway on the site where the future road to Kalbajar will be laid. He noted that the projecting of the Gubadli-Lachin highway continues and its construction will start soon.

Earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke about the highway from Goygol to Kalbajar region, stressing the difficulty of the relief and the need for building tunnels in this direction.

Chairman of the Board of the State Agency Saleh Mammadov said in late February that "on the Azerbaijani president's instruction, a new road is being built for safe movement. The new road will run along the Ganja-Goygol route... The [new] road is being designed for about two months. The construction of the road will begin in March and it will be carried out jointly with a Turkish company".

Kalbajar was among seven Azerbaijani regions that got occupied by the Armenian armed forces during the first Karabakh war. Azerbaijan regained control over the region as a result of a peace deal signed by Baku, Moscow and Yerevan to end the 44-day war in November 2020.

As a result of Armenia's occupation, 511 people were killed and 321 people were captured and went missing. Armenian occupiers destroyed more than 500 industrial, construction, catering and retail facilities, 97 schools and 76 health facilities. Kalbajar region’s 53,340 residents became IDPs.