Baku has launched criminal proceedings over the actions of Armenian soldiers during the last year’s war, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prosecutor Khanlar Valiyev told local media on November 1.

These crimes are being investigated by the Prosecutor-General’s Office and by the State Security Office, the military official said.

A criminal case has also been launched into “incompetence” of some Azerbaijani soldiers during the war, Valiyev said, adding that however, there has been no case of desertion among the Azerbaijani soldiers and officers during the war.

It should be noted that Armenia launched criminal cases back in February against over 10,000 people on charges of desertion during the war, namely for abandoning their combat positions and fleeing the battlefield.

Azerbaijan continues clearing the landmines in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh a year after regaining control over the region in the war with Armenia.

Some 338 anti-personnel mines, 154 anti-tank mines and 1,389 unexploded ordnance were found in the liberated lands in October 2021, the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) reported in its monthly report. The area of cleared area in October was 408 ha, the agency said.

Azerbaijan defused over 10,200 anti-personnel mines, 4,329 anti-tank mines and 12,436 unexploded ordnance in its formerly occupied territories since winning the war and signing the peace agreement with Armenia in November 2020.

It is believed that it will take five to six years to clear unexploded ordinance and 10 to 13 years to clear the mines.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly called on Armenia to provide maps for over 100,000 land mines planted in its formerly-occupied territories. Over 150 civilians and servicemen have been killed or injured by landmines after Azerbaijan regained control over the region since November 2020.

President Ilham Aliyev said in August that “Armenia won’t give us maps of minefields, and the accuracy of the maps provided at the latest stage is only 25 percent.”

President Ilham Aliyev and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan have inaugurated Fuzuli International Airport, which is the first airport built in Azerbaijan’s newly-liberated Karabakh region.

Erdogan arrived in Azerbaijan today to inaugurate the airport becoming the first head of state to land at the Fuzuli International Airport.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the airport’s construction took place back on 14 January during Aliyev’s visit to Fuzuli city that was liberated on October 17 after three decades of Armenian occupation.

The construction of international airports in Lachin and Zangilan regions is also underway in Azerbaijan’s newly-won territories.

The first test flight to Fuzuli was performed on September 5. The airport is approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Shusha and 300 kilometers from the capital Baku and was granted the “international airport” status upon Prime Minister Ali Asadov’s decree on October 16.

The runway of the airport is 3,000 meters and the width is 60 meters. It is equipped with instrumental landing, navigation and control systems, to ensure flight safety. Turkish companies also participated in the construction of the airport.

It should be noted that this was the Turkish president’s third visit to Azerbaijan since Azerbaijan’s victory in last year’s war with Armenia. Earlier, Erdogan attended the military parade held in Baku in December to celebrate Azerbaijan’s victory and also visited historic Shusha city in Nagorno-Karabakh in June where the two presidents signed the Shusha Declaration that cemented the defence cooperation and also focused on setting up new transportation routes.

Fuzuli along with 300 city centers, settlements and regions was liberated during last year’s six-week war that saw Azerbaijan regain control over most of its territories in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region that had been under the Armenian occupation since the war in the early 1990s.