20 September is State Sovereignty Day in Azerbaijan

The National Sovereignty Day is celebrated in Azerbaijan on 20 September.

Today is the anniversary of the military operation in Karabakh, which resulted in the complete de-occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan.

In the course of military operations, which lasted less than a day, the remnants of the Armenian military forces were dealt a crushing blow.

In order to avoid complete defeat, they laid down their arms and left the region. The separatist regime fell. Its current and former leaders involved in war crimes were arrested.

The 23-hour operation led to the restoration of constitutional order and total Azerbaijani control over territory that had been the subject of years of conflict following its occupation by Armenia in the early 1990s.

During the conflict of the early 1990s, Armenia seized 20% of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory, including the former Nagorno-Karabakh region, leading to widespread ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis and culminating in the Khojaly Massacre.

The 2020 war in Karabakh, also known as the 44-day war, resulted in Azerbaijan’ regaining much of its land. And the operations of 19-20 September 2023 finalized the complete de-occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories.

To commemorate the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree declaring 20 September as State Sovereignty Day.