In his speech at the unveiling ceremony of a statue to Ashig Alasgar, President Ilham Aliyev highlighted the deportations our people were subjected to during the 20th century. 'Our nation was subjected to three waves of deportations in the 20th century - first in 1918, second in the 1940-50s and third in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After a certain period of time, after the two deportations, the Azerbaijani people returned to their ancestral lands, not all of them but a large part of them did. This makes us legitimately confident that the Western Azerbaijanis who were subjected to the third wave of ethnic cleansing will also return to their ancestral lands,' added the President. Source: Azerbaijan State News Agency