Azerbaijani President’s Aide Hikmat Hajiyev has said that the government will soon start constructing a school gifted by Turkey in the recently-liberated Shusha city.
The school has been gifted to Azerbaijan by chairman of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party Dovlet Bahcheli. Hajiyev’s comments were in response to Bahcheli’s earlier claims that the Azerbaijani government has “refused” to approve MHP’s school project.
Bahcheli wrote in his Twitter account on May 29 that his party had proposed to open an art school named after Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli in Shusha but that “the Azerbaijan government did not accept our project and drafted a different school project.” He reminded that the foundation of the school was scheduled to be laid on January 30, 2021.
Hajiyev responded to Bahcheli in his on Twitter account on May 30, saying that the construction of the Shusha art school would start soon after technical issues have been resolved at the level of specialists. Hajiyev stressed that “there can be no talk of giving up this benevolent initiative”, adding that it is possible that the lack of a full report on the merits of the issue led to misunderstandings. Hajiyev’s comments ended rumors that Azerbaijan has backtracked on building a Turkish school in Shusha, with some people even suggesting that alleged pressure from Russia was behind Baku’s hesitations.
President Ilham Aliyev said on May 27 that Turkish leader Recep Tayyip would attend a groundbreaking ceremony of the school during his visit to Azerbaijan on June 14-16. The foundation of the school that was destroyed by Armenians during the occupation was laid in May.
Being Azerbaijan’s historical center, Shusha was liberated from 28 years of Armenian occupation during last year’s war. Shusha was declared Azerbaijan’s cultural center on April 7 due to its importance for the country’s culture and music.
