Azernews.Az

By Aisha Jabbarova

President Ilham Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan will rebuild from scratch over 10,000 square km of territories destroyed under the three-decade-long Armenian occupation.

Aliyev made the remarks while receiving Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó on March 10.

The president reiterated his earlier remarks that companies from friendly countries, including from Hungary will be involved in the restoration work in the liberated lands.

Speaking about the formerly occupied territories that were liberated during the 44-day war in 2020, Aliyev said: “It is total devastation. Probably you have seen some video footages of that area, it is total destruction. So, we need to rebuild the area from scratch. It is more than 10,000 square kilometres. It is a big part of Azerbaijan and of course, we want to do it in cooperation with our partners.”

Aliyev said that Hungary is one of the closest friends of Azerbaijan, from where companies will be invited to work together on the liberated areas. He said there is a big potential for cooperation in other spheres such agriculture and technologies.

“We are planning to create a modern infrastructure and city planning on the liberated territories. So, big scope of work,” the president said.

Aliyev thanked Hungary for supporting Azerbaijan for its communications with the European Commission.

“As you know, we are now in the final stage of the discussions on the new agreement due to the pandemic and war. These discussions obviously were put on hold but absolute majority of the items have been already agreed."

In turn, Peter Szijjarto reiterated his country’s support for Azerbaijan’s position during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.

“Our position has always been that Azerbaijan deserves its sovereignty among its internationally recognized borders which right of Azerbaijan was violated for the last decades. We were among the countries which have not made the secret about this position and we will continue to represent this approach of ours in a very clear and loud manner. You can be sure Mr. President that we will always represent a balanced approach in this regard and we will always say the truth and we will represent our position very openly.”

The Azerbaijani government has allocated AZN 2.2 billion ($1.3bn) for reconstruction works in the liberated territories in 2021. In particular, these funds will be used to restore the infrastructure (electricity, gas, water, communications, roads, education, health, etc), as well as cultural and historical monuments. In addition, Azerbaijan allocated over AZN 9 million ($5m) to compensate damages to its citizens who suffered from Armenia's aggression during the six-week war over Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region.

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