Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan – Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev traveled to the city of Dilijan in Armenia on June 14 to meet with Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia.
Medianews.az, citing Yeniavaz.com, reports that Armenia’s “Hraparak” newspaper wrote that this was not the first visit to Dilijan by a high-ranking Azerbaijani official since the 1992-1994 war.
The publication noted that the first high-ranking Azerbaijani official to visit Dilijan was former Minister of Education Misir Mardanov.
The newspaper stated that Misir Mardanov was born on October 3, 1946, in the village of Goyarchin in Dilijan, that the settlement was abolished in the 1950s, and the population was relocated to the village of Salah in the current Dilijan community.
According to the newspaper, in 1997 or 1998, Mardanov went to Yerevan as Minister of Education to attend an international conference, and while there, he expressed a wish to see his ancestral home, a wish that was fulfilled.
Mardanov visited his native village accompanied by employees of the Armenian National Security Service.
A Russian-speaking journalist accompanied Mardanov and filmed the village, the school, and the Mardanov family’s house.
At that time, the house of the Mardanov family was inhabited by Khanlar, formerly from the current Goygol district, and Grigor Gabrielyan and his family, who had migrated there.
At the request of his father Jumeil Mardanov, Mardanov took two handfuls of soil from their gardens. On the way back, Mardanov also visited their native school.
Jumeil Mardanov was the chairman of the Salah kolkhoz at that time.
After the death of Grigor Gabrielyan, his wife sold the house to a resident of Yerevan, who in turn sold it to another Yerevan resident who used the house as a summer home from the Mardanov family house.