Recently, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev confirmed changes in the country’s Housing Code, the laws “On the status of refugees and forcibly displaced persons (internally displaced persons)” and “On the social protection of forcibly displaced persons and their equalized persons”.

According to the new norms, a permanent housing fund will be created in the territories “liberated from occupation” (quotation marks: – M.P.), in which the residential areas included will be provided to forcibly displaced people, with the condition that they will be left as property later. The order of resettlement of Azerbaijani citizens, delivery of their apartments and formalization of ownership rights will be decided by the authorized state body.

We learn from Azerbaijani sources that previously such objects were allocated on the basis of lease agreements.

With those changes, the grounds for terminating the status of a forcibly displaced person are also clarified. A person will lose that status when he is provided with an apartment instead of his previous place of residence in the occupied or “liberated” territories of Artsakh, and even if he refuses to receive an apartment under such conditions.

By the way, the new legislative changes also apply to those citizens or persons who have already received an apartment and resettled in the “liberated areas”, which, according to the Azerbaijani authorities, will enable them to use the legal guarantees provided by the legislation.

And months ago, Azerbaijani MP Razi Nurulayev in the Mill Mejlis had suggested for the returnees to Karabakh to build their houses with their own funds, because the state should not cover the costs of housing construction alone, especially when many settlers return after a short time to where they lived for the last 30 years; eg Baku.

“Today we are building houses, utility services and infrastructure for the displaced persons at the expense of the state. But what is the result? Some of the settlers return after some time. In my opinion, the main role of the state should not be to build houses, but to create conditions. When a resident builds his own house, he is more firmly attached to that land.
During construction, they get used to the place, get to know the surroundings, look for means of income, and neighborly relations are formed. It is also a psychologically and socially healthier model. In addition, this is significantly cheaper for the state budget, because citizens will build their houses twice cheaper than at present,” Nurulayev elaborated.

But Aliyev has his own plans to increase the number of settlers in the occupied Artsakh territories. We have written more than once that after the first Artsakh war, Baku from all international platforms announced of more than 1 million refugees and forcibly displaced people.

However, 6 years have passed since the 44-day war, as a result of which significant areas of Artsakh came under the control of Azerbaijan, and it has been almost 3 years since Artsakh has been completely depopulated, but Aliyev has not even managed to 90.000 resettle a person.

According to July 6, 2026, “in Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur resettled 88,123 thousand people”.

And today the Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan reported that in the first half of 2026, 1 billion was allocated to the restoration of “liberated territories”. 64,1 million manats, moreover, 371,1 million manats for the design and construction of residential complexes.

Now, what about Aliyev’s latest decision?

In essence, he is trying to secure the desired and promised result of the resettlement process through “blackmail”.

It should be noted that in December 2023, Aliyev had announced that they plan to have in Karabakh by the end of 2026 140.000 settler, that is, in the coming months, the dictator of Baku will be able to approach 50.000 bring people to “liberated areas” promising legal guarantees.

Time will tell if Aliyev will succeed in this. However, it is clear that the latest legislative changes related to Azerbaijani refugees and their resettlement prove that Aliyev has failed the resettlement process and is now trying to ensure certain results, at the cost of losing or narrowing the meaning of the concept of “return to homeland”.

What is it about? Oxu.az elaborated that in the past, independent temporary accommodation of forcibly displaced persons was allowed under the condition that it would not violate the rights and legal interests of other persons, and in the event of such a situation, the bodies of the executive power of Azerbaijan were obliged to ensure the transfer to another apartment within the same settlement.

And now, according to the Azerbaijani media, the new law, in fact, removes the restriction of being tied to the same residence, and now in similar cases, the bodies of the executive power are obliged to offer displaced people another residential space without territorial attachment.

And this is exactly what we mean when we say that we are dealing with the substantive loss or narrowing of the concept of “return to the homeland”.

In other words, it is not necessary for an Azerbaijani who has the status of “forcefully displaced” to have his own apartment in the place where he lived before the first Artsakh war. By the way, even before this information was circulated in Azerbaijani sources that the country’s authorities tried people resettle in the places where they have never lived, for example, in the occupied Red Market and Haterk areas, or in the occupied Artsakh areas, where mainly Armenians lived even in the Soviet period.

And it is very possible that the newly created fund will include less resettled settlements and areas, so it is not accidental that the law did not exclude the fact of refusing the apartment to be provided by the government.

In this context, let us add that on one occasion we wrote, that Aliyev is trying to rush to create conditions close to the city in the villages, because many of the settlers are sent from Baku, where they have lived for the past 30 years, and return there shortly after.

In other words, Aliyev considers the resettlement of the “liberated territories” both to solve some problems on the international stage and in the context of the security of Karabakh.

Moreover, on one occasion, the propaganda machine of Baku opened “parentheses” that for Baku, the issue of Karabakh security is no less important than the economic recovery of the region, because the main priority is to ensure the normal and safe life of people returning to the liberated territories.

Therefore, according to Baku, along with creating civil infrastructures, a modern security system is also being formed, so that the next attempts to test the strength of the region or to question the established realities, whoever it may be, will be stopped.

In other words, in order to legitimize the creation of security and military structures, Aliyev also needs this resettlement in specific areas. The problem is to show that resettlement is actively being carried out, and the president of Azerbaijan cares very little that many of the citizens of Azerbaijan may not return to their “place of birth-residence”. And, it is not important at all that the propaganda machine of Baku has publicly provided exciting scenes so far.

And the same will happen in the case of the possible return of “Western Azerbaijanis” to Armenia, when among the returnees there will also be those who were not born and lived in Armenia, after all, many Azerbaijanis who went from Armenia to Azerbaijan during the Karabakh movement moved to Russia after a short time due to different treatment.

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