Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has declared that Armenians have never lived in Nagorno-Karabakh – their historic homeland.
The entire indigenous Armenian population was forcibly deported in September 2023 when Azerbaijan launched a surprise offensive after starving the population for over nine months.
Accordimg to local media reports, Aliyev made the remarks at a meeting with students and professors at Artsakh State University which Azerbaijan has recently reopened, having earlier promises free education and laptops to convince students to study there.
Azerbaijan has a history of making false claims about the millenia-old Armenian heritage, destroying or appropriating historic Armenian monuments, monasteries and cemeteries. After capturing Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, Dozens of Armenian churches, monasteries and cemeteries have been razed to the ground.
