Azerbaijani President: Shusha is crown of Karabakh

"Unfortunately, after the occupation of Shusha, all historical monuments and cultural sites, including the mausoleum of Vagif, were destroyed by the vandals. The occupation of Shusha was a great tragedy of our people," President Ilham Aliyev said at the official opening of the Vagif Poetry Days, organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in the native city of the poet for the first time after the liberation of Shusha from occupation, Report informs, citing AzerTag.

"Because Shusha is the cradle of Azerbaijani culture. Shusha has a great symbolic meaning in the history of Azerbaijan. Shusha is the crown of Karabakh. After the occupation of Shusha, other districts and cities were occupied as well. Of course, the strategic importance of Shusha was lost for us, and the enemy took advantage of this and occupied Lachin a few days later – in May 1992. A year later, in April 1993, they occupied Kalbajar, thus establishing a geographical link between the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region and Armenia. Our defeat was inevitable, given that there was a period of chaos in Azerbaijan at that time. There was no regular army, and there was a civil confrontation.

"The loss of Shusha led to the loss of other districts. However, we, the people of Azerbaijan, were never going to come to terms with this occupation. During the occupation, I repeatedly said that we would never come to terms with this situation, that we would liberate all the occupied lands, including Shusha, from the occupiers at any cost," the head of state noted.