BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 5. This month we are planning to inaugurate Zangilan International Airport, President Ilham Aliyev said addressing the First Azerbaijan National Urban Forum in Aghdam city, Trend reports.
"Already the program of Big Return have started. Relatively recently, this May the first village in Zangilan region was already built and the first IDPs are already back. And I am really very proud, I am sure all the people of Azerbaijan, that not only those who used to live there are going back, but also their children, their grandchildren. This September the school in Zangilan opened and the young Zangilanis are already starting school. They have never seen that land. Because they were born after occupation but it shows that the people of Azerbaijan are strongly committed to their roots, to their native land. And really it’s a source of national pride that based on the survey which we conducted among former IDPs with the question ‘are they going to go back or not’ in order for us to know what should be the scale of housing project, absolute majority responded that they want to go back even those who had never seen those lands. So, this of course creates a very special atmosphere in our society and the feeling of national pride, the feeling of victory, the feeling of restoration of justice, restoration of dignity of the people. These feelings cannot be measured by any scale. This is something which you have to feel. We feel it and we are happy about that and now what we are doing here in Aghdam, in other liberated territories is that we concentrated and mobilized all our potential in order to return the former IDPs as soon as possible. Large-scale infrastructure projects are underway. You have seen Fuzuli International Airport which was built in 8 months. This month we are planning to inaugurate Zangilan International Airport and in 2025 International Airport in Lachin. The railroad from Barda to Aghdam will be operational next year. Yesterday I laid down the foundation of the new railway station. Thousands of kilometers of highways and thousands of kilometers of village roads are being constructed now. According to the investment plan which has been already approved in the liberated territories of Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur there will be 33 tunnels with the total lengths of more than 50 kilometres. There will be 84 bridges with the length of 12 km. These are only part of what we are now doing. We fully restored the electric supply to all the liberated areas and hopefully soon in Jabrayil we will start the construction of the solar power plant capacity of 230 megawatt," the head of state said.