After the 44-Day War, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev faced a serious problem. Despite enormous expenditures, large-scale construction projects and the building of mosques in Artsakh and adjacent territories, Azerbaijanis avoided moving to those occupied territories. Speaking to The Armenian Weekly, Yerevan-based regional security analyst and Turkey expert Mushegh Khudaverdyan notes that Azerbaijan views this settlement project as a demographic and strategic priority.
“Even during the April War, when Azerbaijan seized one to two villages, it immediately settled them. It is important for Azerbaijan’s interests that an Azerbaijani population lives there, and that process is continuing today,” he said. “Construction is progressing rapidly in Karabakh and surrounding territories; Azerbaijan is spending substantial amounts of money to resettle people there as quickly as possible. So that no problems arise with Armenia in the future — meaning that even in the event of wartime conditions, those territories are as populated as possible.”
Simultaneously, Azerbaijan has been trying to erase Armenian traces by altering architectural monuments and removing crosses from churches. According to Khudaverdyan, Baku is trying to present itself as restoring the “Azerbaijani spirit.”
Aliyev’s new precondition
Beyond the occupation of Artsakh, Baku is also circulating the “Western Azerbaijan” narrative. While the Armenian authorities state that Azerbaijanis can at best come to Armenia as tourists, high-ranking Azerbaijani officials openly claim that the resettlement of 300,000 Azerbaijanis in Armenia must be linked to the “peace treaty,” as covered in The Armenian Weekly.
Hikmet Hajiyev, senior adviser to the Azerbaijani president, speaking at the WUF13 international conference in Baku, claimed that during the early years of independence, Azerbaijan faced the issue of accommodating “300,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia,” Azatutyun reported.
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However, this is not supported by historical and statistical records. According to official Soviet census data, the Azerbaijani population of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic never exceeded 200,000. The 1979 census recorded 160,000 Azerbaijanis living in Soviet Armenia, and by 1989, that figure had fallen to 84,000.
Nevertheless, Baku has turned this narrative into a strategic demand. Khudaverdyan notes that this has serious strategic significance for Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan’s goal is to return the Azerbaijani population to Armenia. This is of strategic importance for Azerbaijan, because by returning the Azerbaijani population, Azerbaijan can establish a very serious strategic condition in Armenia,” he said. “Azerbaijan has placed this process on the agenda for discussion in negotiations with the Armenian authorities. However, since the negotiations are taking place behind closed doors, we don’t know what they’re discussing.”
Turkish-Azerbaijani preconditions and threat to Syunik
Various “return” festivals and propaganda events are already being held in Azerbaijan, which suggests Baku is preparing for long-term pressure.
According to Khudaverdyan, Turkey and Azerbaijan have clear preconditions in their relations with Armenia from which they will not back down.
“No matter how much Armenian-Azerbaijani and Armenian-Turkish relations normalize, over time Azerbaijan will put forward that precondition. Just as Turkey, for example, demands the creation of a commission regarding the genocide. I think Azerbaijan will never remove the issue of the return of 300,000 Azerbaijanis from the discussion agenda,” he said.
Khudaverdyan simultaneously emphasized that if population movement or peace is ever discussed, the Armenian side must raise the issue of return and restoration of rights of the hundreds of thousands of Armenians forcibly displaced from Artsakh and Azerbaijan.
On the one hand, Baku uses the language of threats to force its citizens to settle in occupied Artsakh, and on the other, through the “Western Azerbaijan” narrative and blackmail related to the “peace treaty,” attempts to plant demographic and strategic landmines in Armenia, particularly in border regions and Syunik.
