Azerbaijan fully reclaims territory

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan on Tuesday completed reclaiming territory held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century after a peace deal ended six weeks of fierce fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hailed the restoration of control as a “historic victory” and a demonstration of his nation’s “unbending spirit.”

“We all lived with one dream, and now we fulfilled it,” Aliyev said in an address to the nation.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That conflict left not only Nagorno-Karabakh itself but large chunks of surrounding lands in Armenian hands.