Azerbaijan builds another road to liberated lands

The construction of a new road to link Azerbaijan's Naftalan city with liberated Sugovushan settlement has kicked off, State Agency of Azerbaijan Automobile Roads Spokesman Anar Najafli has said.

Najafli added that the construction of the 22-km Talish-Tapgaragoyunlu-Gashalti section of the road is currently underway.

“The road will be commissioned in 2021. It will connect Naftalan with the Tartar-Sugovushan-Talish highway,” the spokesman said.

The Chayli-Sugovushan-Talish road was built in the 1970s. The road was completely destroyed during the 30-year Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani lands.

Azerbaijan will complete the construction of the new two-lane Victory Road to its cultural capital city of Shusha in September. The 101-km-long road, which extends from the Hajigabul-Minjivan-Zangazur corridor to Shusha, is being constructed under Karabakh's development plan.

President Ilham Aliyev laid the foundation of the Victory Road during his visit to Fuzuli and Jabrayil regions on November 16, a week after Azerbaijan’s decisive victory over Armenia in the six-week war in autumn 2020.

On July 28, 2021, Aliyev signed an order to initially allocate AZN 10m ($5.88m) for building the road infrastructure in liberated Kalbajar and Lachin regions.

The massive road construction on the country's liberated lands started right after the last year's war.

In all, Azerbaijan allocated AZN 2.2bn ($1.3bn) for the reconstruction on the liberated territories in 2021. In particular, these funds will be used to restore the infrastructure (electricity, gas, water, communications, roads, education, health, etc), as well as cultural and historical monuments.

Azerbaijan liberated 300 city centers, settlements, villages and the historic Shusha city in the war that lasted from September 27 to November 10. The Russian-brokered peace deal also stipulated the return of Kalbajar, Lachin and Aghdam regions occupied by the Armenian forces in the war in the early 1990s.