"Lachin and Kalbajar were of special importance for Armenia because these two districts are located between Karabakh and Armenia," Farid Shafiyev, Chairman of the Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center), said during the event titled “Lachin & Kalbajar: From Urbicide to Post-Conflict Reconstruction” held within the framework of WUF13, APA reports.
He stated that, for this reason, Armenia used these territories for both military and other logistical purposes.
According to Farid Shafiyev, as a result, Armenia singled out these two districts and acted with a plan to keep them under occupation, proposing the “5+2” formula during negotiations on the return of the occupied districts outside the borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, with the support of mediators — France, Russia and the United States.
“In fact, Armenia intended to keep Lachin and Kalbajar under permanent control and annex them together with the former Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. They treated these territories differently and resettled people brought from Armenia and the Middle East to these regions,” he said.
He noted that during the occupation, only limited construction work was carried out in the city centers of Lachin and Kalbajar.
“Urbicide was also accompanied by ecocide committed by the Armenians. The urbicide that took place in this region before the Second Karabakh War can be considered a new example of the destruction of urban spaces, and a deeper study of it may create opportunities for proposing new criteria for the concept of urbicide. Ultimately, the urbicide that occurred in Karabakh demonstrates that in civil and ethno-nationalist conflicts, urbicide functions both as a spatial and political project,” he added.
