Recently, Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighboring countries in the Southern Caucasus, have begun negotiations concerning the return of four villages occupied since the 1990s: Baghanis Ayrim, Ashagi Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Gizilhajili. These villages, located in Azerbaijan’s Qazakh district, were occupied by Armenia between 1990 and 1992.
The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which has been going on for decades, started in 1988 when Karabakh Armenians demanded to transfer of Nagorno Karabakh Autonomus Oblast (NKAO) from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia.
By the early 1990s, Armenian forces occupied NKAO and seven surrounding provinces with Azerbaijani populations, leading to the displacement of over 700 thousand Azerbaijanis.
In 2020, the second Karabakh war started, lasting 44 days until a ceasefire was declared on November 10, 2020, signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Azerbaijan regained most of its occupied territories, while Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the region controlled by the Armenia-backed ‘defense forces.’
After the 44-day war, although Azerbaijan repeatedly called on the Armenian side to remove its armed forces from Karabakh, this did not happen. With a 24-hour anti-terror operation in September 2023, Azerbaijan gained control over Karabakh, and separatist ‘Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’ declared its dissolution. In less than 10 days, nearly 105 thousand ethnic Armenians from Karabakh migrated to Armenia.
The first release of the November 2020 trilateral statement in the media stated that the 7 villages of Qazakh would be returned by November 20, 2020. However, the Kremlin’s published document later excluded this sentence. Even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a day later mentioned in a meeting with his party members that the 7 villages of Qazakh would be returned on that date.
Three of the 7 Qazakh villages—Yukhari Askipara, Sofulu, Berkhudarli—are enclaves within Armenia, while the remaining four villages— Baghanis Ayrim, Ashagi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Gizilhajili —are attached the mainland Azerbaijan.
Among these villages, Baghanis Ayrim is known as the first village occupied and burned by Armenia in 1990. Baghanis Ayrım village, with 110 households and a population of 600, had strategic importance as it was located near the Yerevan-Ijevan-Noyemberyan road.
The initial attack by Armenian armed forces on the village occurred on March 4, 1990, resulting in two deaths and two injuries. Then, on the night of March 23, 1990, well-equipped Armenian soldiers, accompanied by tanks and armored vehicles, re-entered the village, looted homes, and set it in fire. This brutal attack claimed the lives of six villagers who were burned alive, the village militia guard, Majid Ahmadov was killed. Additionally, Kamran Amrahov and his brother Bakhtiar Amrahov, guests from Qazakh’s Çaylı village, were captured by Armenian forces and later killed.
The eldest among the burned villagers was 75-year-old Dadaş Aliyev, while the youngest was his grandson, 47-day-old baby Hafiz. In this tragic event, 17 houses were set in fire with gasoline, and 11 houses were looted. Village residents fled to neighboring villages and forests to save their lives.
More than 7,000 people, displaced by the occupation of seven villages, resettled in various regions of Qazakh.
Although discussions about the return of the 7 Qazakh villages to Azerbaijan after the 2020 war were common in local media, statements from authorities on this matter have intensified in the past year. In a phone conversation with the President of the European Council Charles Michel on October 7, 2023, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reminded that seven villages of Qazakh and one village of Nakhchivan (Kerki village ) are still under the occupation of Armenia and stated that these villages should be returned.
In January, Aliyev in a press confrence mentioned that the issue of Qazakh villages is also on the agenda of commissions dealing with delimitation.
The statement that caused widespread controversy in Armenia came at the beginning of March. Following themeeting of border commissions fon the Ijevan-Qazakh border on March 7, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev , the head of the border commission said that the 4 non-enclave villages of Qazakh should be returned immediately: “As for the four non-exclave Azerbaijani villages (Baghanis Ayrim, Ashagi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Gizilhajili) occupied by Armenia, their affiliation to Azerbaijan is beyond any doubt and they are subject to immediate liberation.”
Mustafayev stated that the issue of four of Azerbaijan’s exclave villages will also be resolved within the delimitation process.
Three days after Mustafayev’s statement, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan answered the questions of Armenian media holding a cut off map of Armenia. Pashinyan emphasized that Azerbaijan and Armenia had mutually recognized each other’s territorial integrity according Alma Ata Declaration in 1991. He stated that the four villages demanded by Azerbaijan are not within Armenian territory.
“The names of the villages being raised in the Azerbaijani press have never existed in the territory of the Republic of Armenia; moreover, not only during Soviet times but even afterward,” he said.
On March 18, Pashinyan visited the villages of Voskepar and Kirants, located close to these four non-enclave villages, and answered the questions of the local people. He also showed the map of Armenia again and stated that these four villages were not on Armenian land and should be returned to Azerbaijan, otherwise the uncertain situation could potentially lead to a new war.
Despite the fact that the four villages in Qazakh have been occupied for 30 years, Armenians have not settled there. The houses abandoned by the Azerbaijanis were demolished, and the local people used the land to graze their animals. Regardless, some political commentators, including the opposition in Armenia, continue to see these four villages as part of the Tavush region of Armenia and claim that the main road connecting Armenia to its neighbor Georgia passes through these villages. In fact, parts of one of the 3 roads connecting Armenia to Georgia pass through the village of Ashagi Askipara, and the main road passes through the Alaverdi, Vanadzor and Dilijan regions of Armenia, far from the Azerbaijan-Armenia border. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan touched upon this issue at the press conference and emphasized that a new road could be built instead of the roads passing through Azerbaijani land:
“In the near future, we must take action, and where, for example, our communications are beyond our borders, we must reconstruct our communications in those areas, so that all communications of Armenia pass through the de jure territory of Armenia,” Pashinyan noted.
After Pashinyan’s statement, Garnik Danielyan from the opposition Hayastan party visited the Tavush region and said that if Armenia returns these 4 villages, the Gasprom (Russia) gas pipeline will be under the control of Azerbaijan. In fact, the natural gas pipeline passes through the enclave Yukhari Askipara village, not through the non-enclave villages. Answering the media’s question, Deputy CEO of Gazprom Armenia, Chief Engineer Artashes Gabrielyan said that there is no disscusion regarding the relocation of the natural gas pipeline for now.
The return of the four non enclave villages of Qazakh would be an important step in reducing the tensions that have increased between Armenia and Azerbaijan in recent days and could also have a confidence-building effect between the parties.
When it comes to four Azerbaijani exclaves, the situation is more complicated. One of the proposals is to keep the situation as it is or organized land swap between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Konul Shahin is a researcher at Ankara Policy Center, and focuses especially on the developments in the South Caucasus countries, post-conflict normalization, and the relations of these countries with Türkiye.
