State Committee: Mine contamination - serious obstacle for urban rehabilitation

More than 300 cities and villages, cultural and religious sites have been fully destroyed as a result of urbicide, culturecide and ecocide during the occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories, Chairman of Azerbaijan’s State Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture Anar Guliyev said during a ministerial round table meeting within the XI session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11) in Poland, Report’s correspondent sent to Poland to participate in the forum informs.

“Besides, the vast contamination of the conflict affected territories by landmines and absence of the accurate minefield maps remain major obstacle for the effective urban planning, rehabilitation and reconstruction work and the return of hundreds of thousands of IDPs to their homelands,” Guliyev noted.

Despite these challenges, Azerbaijan has started and already achieved tangible results in rebuilding towns from the scratch by applying the modern urban planning and utilizing the concepts of "smart city", "smart village", “green energy and net zero emission zone”, he added.

“We want the cities we are building to be inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable,” he said.