ArmInfo.Baku is actively promoting the idea of the so-called "Western Azerbaijan", which is a clear territorial claim to Armenia. Tigran Abrahamyan, MP of the opposition "I have the honor" parliamentary faction, stated on May 26 during a briefing in parliament.
In fact, according to Abrahamyan, the President of Azerbaijan declares that Azerbaijanis should return to those settlements where they lived in Soviet times. "This implies their return, as well as the implementation by Azerbaijan of the security function, which will be put on the agenda at some stage," he said. In the future, this will become a pretext for Baku for new aggression against the Republic of Armenia and for new territorial claims against Yerevan, the parliamentarian added.
This "idea" was not presented in the tripartite statement dated November 9, 2020, but Baku gradually put it on the agenda in the conditions of the total concessive position of the RA authorities, because of which Armenia will face this and many other problems in the future, the opposition MP said.
Ilham Aliyev spoke seriously about "returning to Western Azerbaijan" at the end of 2022. At the end of February this year, Press Secretary of the Community of West Azerbaijan Ulviya Zulfugar stated: "As for the restoration and preservation of the cultural heritage of Azerbaijan in present-day Armenia, it should be noted that this is an important condition for peace and reconciliation. In this regard, with the participation of specialized UN bodies, we will try to assess the state of the cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis in Armenia. A list of damaged and destroyed cultural heritage should be drawn up, and the Armenian government should fulfill its obligation to restore and preserve them: The West Azerbaijan community conducts a census of community members based on international methodology. In the future, we will also make efforts to census Western Azerbaijanis living in other states>. On March 3, during the hearings on the topic "Climbing the Mountains: Peaceful and Legal Return to Western Azerbaijan", organized by the Human Rights Committee of the Azerbaijani Parliament, Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov stated: "The return of Western Azerbaijanis is the dream and national goal of the entire Azerbaijani people, and not only our compatriots expelled for many years from Western Azerbaijan. The return to Western Azerbaijan is a sensitive, important issue for our society and state. It is relevant to raise the issue at the present time, in the context of the new political realities that have arisen after the Patriotic War (this is how Azerbaijan calls the second Karabakh war of 2020.-ed. note)>.