The occupation of Shusha was an immense tragedy. The occupation of every city, every village and district was a great tragedy, but the occupation of Shusha was perhaps the most painful loss for us.

Axar.az reports that the statement came from President Ilham Aliyev while receiving Aydin Karimov in a video format on January 27 in connection with the appointment of the President's Special Representative in Shusha.

"Not only because of the strategic location of Shusha, which allowed us control of the entire region – if the work had been done properly – it also gave us the opportunity to take all necessary measures to defend Shusha even with minimum resources. The loss of Shusha caused a great shock to our people, a moral shock, and we had lived without Shusha for 28 years. However, although the Armenians have destroyed Shusha, it did not bend, it did not lose its dignity even though it was in captivity, it was able to preserve the spirit of Azerbaijan despite attempts to Armenianize it. We have returned to Shusha, and when sharing this great news with the people of Azerbaijan on 8 November, I said, “Shusha, you are free!” We have returned to our history. Of course, we will restore Shusha, revive Shusha, and the process of revival has already begun." - the head of the state mentioned.