Tokyo, 01 July, /AJMEDIA/
“Having endured Armenia’s aggression and the occupation of 20 percent of its territory for 30 years, Azerbaijan ended the occupation in November 2020 and restored its territorial integrity. Since then, the country has embarked on the restoration of its liberated territories. The Great Return State Program is being implemented to facilitate the return of Azerbaijanis displaced from these areas to their native cities and villages. To date, $15 billion from the state budget has been allocated to the program’s implementation,” Deputy Prime Minister Samir Sharifov said during a plenary meeting at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) held in Seville, Spain.
Sharifov noted that, according to the assessment of the Azerbaijan Government Commission, military aggression and occupation inflicted $150 billion in damage on Azerbaijan. As more than 15 percent of this damage is related to mine contamination in the territories, President Ilham Aliyev designated mine safety as Azerbaijan’s 18th national Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). This approach has also been recommended to other countries.
