After that, I visited the city of Lachin, raised the Azerbaijani flag in the centre of the city and declared that we would live in our native land forever.

Axar.az reports that President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said as he received Masim Mammadov due to his appointment as Special Representative of the President in Lachin district, which is included in East Zangezur economic region.

Although the district came under our control when the Second Karabakh War ended, the city of Lachin was not in our hands. There were objective reasons for that. Because the road from Armenia to Karabakh passed through the center of the city of Lachin. As a result of many hours of phone conversations with the President of Russia on November 9, 2020, we managed to incorporate the return of the city of Lachin to Azerbaijan as a precondition. For this purpose, the construction of an alternative road was included in the final statement at my insistence and a deadline was indicated. However, it was indicated in somewhat vague terms that discussions on this issue would be held within three years.

But as soon as the Second Karabakh War ended, I immediately ordered that the route and all technical parameters of the new road be determined. We quickly started this work and finished it in a year and a half. So a new road bypassing the city of Lachin was built and the road was ready for operation at the beginning of August last year, or rather on August 2. We sent a message to the command of the Russian peacekeeping forces that they should move their posts from the current route to a new one, and by August 5, we should be able to enter the city of Lachin, the villages of Zabukh and Sus. Representatives of Karabakh Armenians who were in contact with our representatives at the time asked us to give them some time, said that they would resolve those issues themselves by August 25, that they would evict the illegally settled Armenians from the city of Lachin and the villages of Zabukh and Sus, and thus the issue would be resolved comfortably. I didn't mind that. After all, 20 days doesn't make that much of a difference. So all Armenians illegally settled in the city of Lachin and the villages of Zabukh and Sus were removed from there by August 25. On August 26, we returned to the villages of Zabukh, Sus and the city of Lachin. After that, I visited the city of Lachin, raised the Azerbaijani flag in the center of the city and declared that we would live in our native land forever," the President mentioned.