Baku Plans to Return 30,000 Azerbaijani Families to Karabakh Over Next Three Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 17 – Sakhib Garfarov, the head of the Azerbaijani parliament, says that Baku plans over the next three years to organize the return to Karabakh and Eastern Zengezur of 30,000 families who fled the region during the fighting in the late 1980s and early 1990s and have been living as refugees ever since.

            Assuming an average family size of five, that means some 150,000 Azerbaijanis will be returning to these regions, far more than the number of Armenians international media are reporting will be leaving (trtrussian.com/novosti/azerbajdzhan-nameren-za-tri-goda-vernut-v-karabah-bolee-30-tys-semej-14977023).

            Gafarov says that the program, “The Great Return to Territories of the Azerbaijani Republic Freed from Occupation, will require rebuilding eight cities and hundreds of villages and will cost “more than seven billion US dollars.” The Azerbaijani government will bear almost all the costs.