Official: Azerbaijan's experience in rebuilding cities can be example for whole world

POLITICS  29 June 2022 - 11:29

The Azerbaijani President's Special Representative for the liberated territories of the Karabakh economic region (except for Shusha), Emin Huseynov, has said that the Azerbaijani government is committed to the restoration of the liberated territories based on global standards and best practices.

The most important goal is to bring back former internally displaced persons to these lands and provide them with comfortable living conditions, Report quotes him as saying.

Huseynov said that the main slogan of the 11th session of the World Urban Forum is "Transforming cities for a better future", but Azerbaijan is currently facing a more difficult task - rebuilding the cities destroyed during the period of Armenian occupation from scratch.

He recalled that during the period of the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani lands, nine Azerbaijani cities were completely wiped off the face of the earth.

“The example of Karabakh opened up new realities for the UN-Habitat and the World Urban Forum on how to rebuild a city from scratch after complete destruction. It became clear to everyone that the steps being implemented by Azerbaijan today have no precedents, this is a mega-project. Within the framework of the forum, we presented to its participants the ambitious program being implemented by Azerbaijan”, Huseynov noted.

“The steps taken by Azerbaijan to restore the liberated territories can become an example for the whole world. This experience can be used in other countries as well. Azerbaijan is a country that stands for peace and calls for peace. However, unfortunately, today there are many conflicts, acts of vandalism in the world, and Azerbaijan's work to restore its lands can become an example,” Huseynov said.

According to him, the concept of a "smart city/village" is also high on the agenda of discussions during the World Urban Forum.

“We took part in a number of sessions and got acquainted with the concepts of Germany, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Korea on this issue. In Azerbaijan, the first settlement, Aghali, has already been built on the concept of a "smart village", and the second is already at the stage of completion in the Fuzuli district. However, the main thing is not a "smart village", but the creation of comfortable conditions for people to live”, Huseynov said.

“When preparing master plans for cities in the liberated territories, the “smart city” principle is used, so I think that we will not stop at these two cities and the components of the “smart city” concept will be present during the restoration of cities in all the liberated territories,” he concluded.

Caliber.Az