OREANDA-NEWS. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev announced the capture of nine settlements on the line of contact in the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Today, the glorious Azerbaijani army liberated the following settlements: the city of Jabrayil, the village of Karkhulu, the village of Shukurbeyli, the village of Yukhari Maralian, the village of Chereken, the village of Dashkesan, the village of Gorovlu, the village of Dekal, the village of Mahmudlu, the village of Jafarabad,” the head of the republic said during an appeal to the people of the country.

The President urged the residents of these villages to stop trying to secede from Azerbaijan. Aliyev stated that he intends to return the refugees to their ancestral territories by force.

Earlier, Aliyev reported on Twitter that the Azerbaijani army seized Jabrayil and several nearby settlements. In response to his statement, press secretary of the Armenian Defense Ministry, Shushan Stepanyan, wrote on Facebook that the message is falsification.