Azeri president marks Nowruz in retaken cultural city

MOSCOW (AP) — Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has marked the Nowruz holiday by lighting a ceremonial fire outside Shusha, a culturally revered city that Azerbaijan took from Armenian forces in last autumn’s war. Shusha, a center of Azeri culture for centuries, came under Armenian control in 1992 in fighting over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region. Its retaking by Azerbaijan’s forces in November was important both symbolically and strategically because it sits high above the region’s nearby capital Stepanakert. Aliyev lighted a fire in a traditional ceremony and said in a video released by the presidential office on Saturday that “Shusha may have been destroyed … However, Shusha did not bend.”