Azerbaijan regained control of the Kalbajar district, bordering Nagorno-Karabakh, from Tuesday 24 to Wednesday 25 November.
In a statement, the Ministry of Defense in Baku said that "units of the Azerbaijani army entered Kalbajar district on November 25" under the end of hostilities agreement signed by Armenia in early November. , Azerbaijan and Russia.
Located between the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic and Armenia, Kalbajar should have been surrendered on November 15, but Baku had postponed the event, citing humanitarian reasons.
By signing the ceasefire, Yerevan agreed to surrender three districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh - Agdam, Kalbajar and Lachin - which had eluded Baku's control for nearly 30 years and a first war in the 1990s.
Burnt houses
The district of Kalbajar, like that of Agdam surrendered on November 20 and that of Lachin which is to be surrendered on December 1, until then formed a buffer zone surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.
Four other districts forming this safe glacis were taken back militarily by Baku.
In the days leading up to the handover, AFP saw Armenian residents chopping down trees, retrieving power cables and even loading parts of a hydroelectric dam onto a truck.
"They are burning (the houses), the trees are cut down and people are taking everything away," 53-year-old mason Gaguik Yakchibekian told AFP, explaining that the Armenians refused to allow Azerbaijanis to live in their houses.
The end of hostilities agreement, signed when the military situation was catastrophic for Armenia, enshrines the victory of Azerbaijan and grants it significant territorial gains after six weeks of a conflict which claimed several thousand victims.
It nevertheless allows the survival of Nagorno-Karabakh, cut off from part of its territory, 2,000 Russian peacekeepers being deployed to guarantee the cease-fire.
Refugees
In Dadivank, a town in Kalbajar district, engineer Grigory Grigorian said he regretted leaving the house he had lived in for 25 years, the place where his "children grew up and went to school".
The city is known to Armenians for its 12th century monastery which will also be returned to Azerbaijan.
In recent weeks, worshipers have flocked to pray there one last time, worrying about the future of the place despite assurances from Baku that it will preserve religious buildings.
However, residents who fled to Armenia during the recent fighting have started returning to Nagorno-Karabakh.
According to Moscow, 13,000 refugees have been assisted with their resettlement.
With AFP
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