President Aliyev Calls for Return of Azerbaijanis Expelled from Modern-day Armenia

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev expressed optimism about the return of Western Azerbaijanis to their ancestral lands in modern-day Armenia, drawing parallels to the successful resettlement of Azerbaijanis to Karabakh and East Zangezur regions.

The Azerbaijani people were subjected to three waves of deportation in the 20th century, including those from Western Azerbaijan, i.e. modern-day Armenia, President Aliyev said in a recent address.

“After a certain period, after the two deportations, the Azerbaijani people returned to their ancestral lands, not all of them but a large part of them did. This gives us legitimate confidence that the Western Azerbaijanis who were subjected to the third wave of ethnic cleansing will also return to their ancestral lands (…) The next generations of Western Azerbaijanis who have not seen those lands are living with a dream for the Motherland,” the president stated.

He compared this desire to the eagerness of those Azerbaijanis displaced from the Karabakh (Garabagh) and East Zangezur regions of Azerbaijan, who have returned to their native lands liberated from Armenian occupation in 2020.

Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan, commenting on President Aliyev’s statements, noted that the search of some Azerbaijani circles for their historical homeland could “even lead them to Altai”.

The Western Azerbaijan Community (WAC), an umbrella organization advocating for the rights of ethnic Azerbaijanis who were expelled from present-day Armenia, slammed Simonyan’s “amateurish and ridiculous” remarks as an attempt to disrupt the peace process and undermine the right of return of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia.

“Simonyan's statement about sending Azerbaijanis to the Altai mountains in the name of "looking for their historical homeland" once again reveals that the ideology of racism and ethnic exclusivity prevails in the leadership circles of Armenia. It is worth reminding that on September 27, 2020, when the Armenian side started a war against Azerbaijan, the chief of staff of this country's army made a similar racist statement and stated that the aim of Armenia's attack was to send Azerbaijanis to the Altai mountains. Everyone knows how this turned out for Armenia,” WAC said in statement on Wednesday.

Western Azerbaijan – modern-day Armenia

The western edge of Azerbaijan historically encompassed lands inhabited by ethnic Azerbaijanis. However, these lands were included in destructive plans developed by the Russian imperial and Soviet authorities. The city of Iravan (modern-day Yerevan) and the Zangezur region were among the centers of Azerbaijani population and culture before their forcible separation from the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) in 1918 and 1920, respectively.

Iravan was originally inhabited by ethnic Azerbaijanis, whose ancestors established the city. Although Iravan was “willingly” handed over to the newly established Armenian state by the ADR government, historical sources claim that this act was organized and implemented forcibly under foreign pressure.

Zangezur is historically an Azerbaijani region that now forms the southern part of the present-day Armenia as well as a portion of Azerbaijan’s territory.

During the 11th and 12th centuries, Zangezur was part of the Seljuk Empire, which further expanded Turkic-Islamic influence within the region. Subsequently, Zangezur faced invasions from Mongol-Tatar tribes and the Timurid Empire. From the 15th to the 18th century, the region was part of medieval Azerbaijani states, including Garagoyunlu, Aghgoyunlu, and Safavids.

Demographic changes occurred in Iravan and the Zangezur region during the rule of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. Under the Russian Empire, a massive relocation of Armenians from Ottoman and Iranian territories to the South Caucasus, including Iravan, Zangezur, and other Azerbaijani territories, took place.

Similar population transfers continued from 1904 to 1915, resulting in the relocation of over 260,000 ethnic Armenians to Azerbaijani territories. Protests against these actions were largely disregarded, and approximately 130,000 Armenians were relocated to Azerbaijani provinces such as Iravan and Yelizavetpol (the name of Azerbaijan’s Ganja city during Tsarist Russia's period).

During the years of 1905-1907 and 1914-1921, Armenian armed groups committed massacres in Zangezur, resulting in the deaths of approximately half a million indigenous Azerbaijanis and other local Muslims. During this period, 115 Muslim villages in Zangezur were completely destroyed.

Iravan was ceded to the newly established Armenian Republic on May 29, 1918. Following the subjugation of the ADR by Bolshevik forces on April 28, 1920, a significant part of the Zangezur region was also ceded to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic on November 30, 1920.

These territorial annexations were facilitated by the Soviet Empire, which forced the Azerbaijani authorities to make concessions. Consequently, Nakhchivan became an exclave separated from the Azerbaijani mainland.

The annexation of Iravan had severe consequences for its indigenous Azerbaijani population and the cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis. In 1916, there were over 373,000 Azerbaijanis living in Iravan. However, according to census records from 1922, only 12,000 Azerbaijanis were registered.

In 1933, the territory of the Armenian SSR was divided into districts, and the name Zangezur was changed to new district names such as Gafan, Gorus, Garakilsa (Sisian), and Mehri.

The final phase of the “Armenianization” of Western Azerbaijan occurred in 1988 when over 300,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were forcibly expelled from their ancestral lands. This expulsion was accompanied by anti-Azerbaijan sentiments, pogroms, and persecution of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Armenia. The underlying motive for this ethnic conflict was Armenia’s illegal territorial claims, particularly regarding the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. The deportation of Azerbaijanis set the stage for Armenia’s full-scale military attack on Azerbaijan, leading to the First Karabakh War from 1991 to 1994 and the subsequent occupation of internationally recognized Azerbaijani territories.