Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh
[15] At the outset of the 1991–1994 Karabakh conflict, the majority-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was surrounded by regions with Azerbaijani majorities and had no land border with Armenia.
According to UNHCR office in Baku, based on Azerbaijani government statistics, in March 1994 there were an estimated 658,000 displaced persons and 235,000 refugees in Azerbaijan.
They also reported that towns and villages that existed before the conflict were abandoned and almost entirely in ruins, and Armenian settlers lived "in precarious conditions, with poor infrastructure, little economic activity, and limited access to public services".
[44] Under the agreement, which is being enforced by Russian peacekeepers under an initial 5 year mandate, the former combatants will keep control of their currently held areas within Nagorno-Karabakh, while Armenia will return the surrounding territories it occupied in 1994 to Azerbaijan.
[50] Some Armenians took their dead relatives' remains with them,[51] and Reuters reported that villagers were "carting off everything they could as trucks nearby loaded up with household possessions".
[55] Azerbaijan denounced civilians leaving the area for burning houses and committing what it termed "ecological terror";[56] President Ilham Aliyev called Armenians who destroyed their properties a "wild enemy".
Azerbaijan's Presidential Office stated that it took the worsening weather and the fact that there was only one road to Armenia into consideration when agreeing to extend the deadline.
[65] Also, on 30 November, French-Iranian Azerbaijani photojournalist Reza Deghati reported that the Armenian forces, before handing over the region, had sacked and burned down an 18th-century mosque, which they used as a barn for cows, in Qiyasli, Agdam.
][67] Rustam Muradov, commander of the Russian peacekeeping task force in the region, stated that the handover operation had been carried out without incident.
[76] The Azerbaijani Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources stated that it would evaluate the mineral deposits of Kalbajar District in order to calculate "the amount of damage caused to Azerbaijan".
[87] The Russian peacekeepers also set up a post in a town previously called Zabukh by the local Azerbaijanis before it was destroyed in 1992, but later on the ruins there was built a village inhabited by Lebanese-Armenians.
According to BBC Russian Service correspondent, Yuri Vekdik, despite Aleksanyan's calls, the vast majority of Armenian settlers in Lachin, as well as the Lebanese-Armenians in Zabux, had fled the region.
[89] The Azerbaijani authorities stated that the district had suffered "great damage over the years", while it was administrated by the Republic of Artsakh as its Kashatagh Province.
[7][8][9][10] In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Resolution 62/243 by 39 to 7, calling for the withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
