Turkish and Azerbaijani presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ilham Aliyev opened the Fuzuli Airport together on 26 October, 2021.
Erdogan flew directly to Karabakh, where he met the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the new Fuzuli International Airport. There, they inaugurated the airport in the Karabakh-region city, which is still uninhabitable after the Fall 2020 War in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces.
The airstrip of the airport is 3,000 meters long and 60 meters wide and the platform covers an area of 60,000 square meters, designed for parking 8 aircrafts.
The Azerbaijani government did not publish Fuzuli airport’s construction costs. Only the National Statistics Committee presented some numbers, which were prepared on the basis of data from customer organizations.
Fuzuli region was reintegrated into Azerbaijani territory in 17 October 2020 during the Fall 2020 War. Since then, the government has been investing in the region’s infrastructure, with two more airports being built in the cities of Zangilan and Lachin. The tender procedure for the construction of these airports has not been made public.
Economist Gubad Ibadoglu is skeptical that Fuzuli and the other airports under construction will be profitable. According to him, none of the three international airports, each one costing hundreds of millions of manats, will be able to operate profitably in the region of Karabakh before they are settled, since the cost of such expensive buildings and their maintenance will most likely become a constant burden and additional cost for the state budget.
The Turkish President also attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Horadiz-Jabrail-Zangilan-Agband highway. Known as the Zangazur corridor, the highway passes through Armenian territory. Many construction projects started in Karabakh after last years war have been contracted to Turkish companies with agreements that will last decades.
