Azerbaijan clears mines at scale, but on contested Karabakh land
UN-Habitat official praises Baku's nationally led demining, in territory retaken from Armenian forces in 2023
BAKU, Azerbaijan (MNTV) — Azerbaijan’s government carries out more than 95 percent of the country’s mine-clearance work itself, an approach a UN-Habitat official said could be a model for other mine-affected countries, though the effort is concentrated in territory whose recapture displaced its Armenian population.
Erfan Ali, director of a UN-Habitat regional office, told reporters at an international mine-action conference in Baku that Azerbaijan’s national ownership of demining was “an extremely significant signal,” and that more than 3,000 hectares had been cleared by the state Mine Action Agency (ANAMA).
He said such clearance was essential to reconstruction, praising strong government leadership.
His remarks were reported by the Azerbaijani state-aligned outlet Caliber.Az.
The land being cleared is largely in and around Karabakh, the region Azerbaijan retook from Armenian control in a September 2023 offensive, after which almost the entire ethnic-Armenian population of about 100,000 fled to Armenia.
Azerbaijani officials describe the area as “liberated territories” and frame demining as a prelude to resettlement and reconstruction; for the displaced Armenians, it is land they were forced from.
The mine contamination is real and dangerous — a genuine humanitarian problem — but the framing of the clearance sits within a wider, contested political effort to consolidate control over the region.
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