XANKENDI, Azerbaijan -- Azerbaijan has marked the third anniversary of its victory in the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh, when Azerbaijani forces took control over a chunk of the breakaway region mostly populated by Armenians and seven adjacent districts that had been under ethnic Armenian separatists’ control since the 1990s.
Military parades were held on November 8 in Baku, Karabakh's capital, Xankendi (known as Stepanakert in Armenian), and other cities across the country to mark the date. The celebrations came less than two months after Azerbaijani forces took control over the whole Karabakh region in a one-day military operation in mid-September.
President Ilham Aliyev visited Xankendi to observe the military parade there.
"We have met all our objectives, but from now on army-building will remain one of the priority issues for us. Everyone must know about it," Aliyev said, adding that his country "does not need a new war" with Armenia.
Trophy military equipment and vehicles captured by Azerbaijani forces from Armenian troops were shown at the parade.
The 2020 war was the second that Azerbaijan and Armenia fought in the last three decades over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which had been a majority ethnic Armenian enclave since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The region initially came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Nagorno-Karabakh, however, was recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan.
Although Baku called on ethnic Armenians to stay in Karabakh after what it called the "restoration of Azerbaijan's sovereignty" in September, nearly 100,000 ethnic Armenians, most of the region's population, fled to Armenia.
The Armenian government has officially stated several times that Yerevan recognizes Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, including the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijani authorities detained several ethnic Armenian leaders of the once-breakaway region after the separatist government announced that it would dissolve the unrecognized republic by January 1, 2024. They are being held in Baku on charges of separatism.