TODAY.AZ / Politics

Al-Jazeera: Azerbaijan’s Jojug Marjanli village in midst of construction boom

24 May 2018 [12:52] - TODAY.AZ

By  Trend


Azerbaijan’s Jojug Marjanli village, liberated from Armenian occupation, is in the midst of a construction boom, said an article published on Al-Jazeera.

“During the past year, houses have popped up alongside schools, sports facilities and a newly constructed mosque - and more are being built,” said the article.

What makes Jojug Marjanli's regeneration important is its location, according to the author.

The village touches the no-man's land that separates the Azerbaijani military from the territories occupied by Armenia and was previously uninhabitable due to the conflict, said the article.

As the Armenians hold positions just a few kilometers from the village, the regeneration would be visible to Armenian troops stationed there, wrote the author.

"Of course, they (Armenians) can see us," Ali Aliyev, the head of the neighbouring Fizuli region, told Al Jazeera.

"Of course, they are jealous".

He went on to assert that the investment in the region is for the people.

The author went on to add that 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory is currently under Armenian occupation.

“It was the Azerbaijanis who bore the brunt of the losses in terms of lives lost, population displaced and land lost. The territory includes not only the Nagorno-Karabakh district, but also large parts of seven surrounding Azerbaijani districts,” said the article.

The author recalled that Jojug Marjanli was fully recaptured by Azerbaijani soldiers during the April 2016 clashes.

“The conflict was the deadliest confrontation between the two sides since a ceasefire in 1994. While the territorial gains the Azerbaijanis made were small relative to the territory still controlled by the Armenians, they have had a big symbolic and psychological impact for many IDPs. For the first time in more than two decades, a small number Azerbaijanis were able to return to territory once held by the Armenians, and it was the first time the lines of control had shifted since 1994,” said the article.

The author noted that clashes often turn deadly, with casualties on both sides.

An Azerbaijani toddler and her grandmother were killed when Armenian forces shelled the nearby village of Alkhanli in July 2017, added the author.

“There is a belief that unlike in the early 1990s, the Azerbaijanis hold the advantage of military strength over the Armenian side. The country's oil and gas wealth has allowed it to bankroll the purchase of state-of-the-art arms from the US, Russia, Turkey and Israel,” said the article.

The military is not the only beneficiary of Azerbaijan's decade-long boom, which has seen the country's GDP go from $8.7 billion in 2004 to $75 billion in 2014, according to the article.

“The government has spent considerable sums improving living conditions for the displaced, including the construction of new housing blocks to replace the makeshift dwellings that sprung up in the 1990s. Officials estimate that 350,000 of the 1.2 million IDPs and refugees have been rehoused in such facilities,” said the author.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/170353.html

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