Azerbaijan deploys forces in Kalbajar and Aghdam

Azerbaijan continued to deploy military forces to the Kalbajar and Aghdam regions, days after President Ilham Aliyev vowed to rebuild and revive the region.

Kalbajar is the latest territory that Armenian forces have ceded in a truce that ended six weeks of intense fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.

A video released by Azerbaijan's Defence Ministry on Saturday, showed Azerbaijani armed forces entering abandoned towns.

Azerbaijani military convoys were seen entering various towns and villages purportedly in Aghdam and Kalbajar.

On Wednesday, in an address to the nation soon after Azerbaijani troops entered the region, Aliyev said, "We will restore Kalbajar, let no one have doubts about that, and life will return there."

Kalbajar was expected to be handed over on November 15, but Azerbaijan agreed to delay the takeover after a request from Armenia.

Azerbaijani officials said worsening weather conditions made the withdrawal of Armenian forces and civilians difficult along the single road through mountainous territory that connects the region with Armenia.

Ahead of the handover, some ethnic Armenians leaving Kalbajar set their houses on fire in a bitter farewell.

The gesture insulted Azerbaijanis, who used to live in Kalbajar and fled as it fell under Armenian control in early 1990s.

The handover of the Kalbajar region follows a cease-fire agreement which ended weeks of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh between ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijan forces.

The truce, brokered by Russia, stipulated that Armenia hand over control of some areas it holds outside Nagorno-Karabakh's borders to Azerbaijan including the regions of Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

Heavy fighting that flared up on September 27 marked the biggest escalation of the decades-old conflict between the two ex-Soviet nations in over a quarter-century, killing hundreds of people.