President Ilham Aliyev raised Azerbaijan's flag in the main city of Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday, October 15, cementing Baku's conquest of the region after last month's lightning offensive that led to an exodus of ethnic Armenians. It was Aliyev's first visit to the city – which Azerbaijan calls Khankendi and Armenia calls Stepanakert – since it fell to Armenian separatists in the early 1990s.
Baku published images of Aliyev touring Karabakh after his forces swept through the mountainous region in a 24-hour September offensive that ended three decades of Armenian separatist rule. "President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has raised the National Flag of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the city of Khankendi and delivered a speech," Aliyev's office said in a statement.
The vast majority of the estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenians that had been living in the territory have since fled to Armenia. Images of Karabakh's main city after the Azerbaijani offensive showed a ghost town.
Aliyev's trip came exactly 20 years since he became president of Azerbaijan. Throughout his authoritarian rule he has vowed to bring Karabakh back under Azerbaijani control.
Aliyev's visit came as Pope Francis on Sunday called for the protection of Karabakh's ancient Christian Armenian monasteries and churches. The Catholic leader spoke after his traditional Angelus prayer in Saint Peter's Square in Rome: "Beyond the humanitarian situation of the displaced people, which is serious, I would like to appeal for the protection of the monasteries and places of worship in the region." He called on the new authorities and "all inhabitants" to respect the places of worship "in an expression of faith and a sign of a fraternity that allows us to live together in our differences."
Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of "ethnic cleansing" in Karabakh, which Baku denies. Aliyev's trip came after he met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a meeting of ex-Soviet leaders in Kyrgyzstan, which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not attend. While Aliyev did not go to a European summit for talks with Pashinyan earlier this month, his office has said that he intends to travel for Brussels talks with the Armenian leader.