Azerbaijan’s president raises the nation’s flag in a former breakaway region’s capital

By The Associated Press

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has raised his nation’s flag over the capital city of a former breakaway region in a ceremony reaffirming Baku’s control over it. The presidential office said Sunday that the Azerbaijani leader delivered a speech and raised the flag over the city which is known as Khankendi by Azerbaijan and Stepanakert by Armenians. The Karabakh region was previously called Nagorno-Karabakh and is known to Armenians as Artsakh. It’s internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory. But it had been controlled by ethnic Armenian forces since 1994 following a six-year conflict. A subsequent war in 2020 returned control of much of the area to Azerbaijan. A lightning offensive last month forced separatists to relinquish the rest of the region.