The Azerbaijani army entered the region of Lachin following its 28-year occupation by Armenian forces on Monday.

Azerbaijan's defense ministry released a video showing a tank flying an Azerbaijani flag leading a line of trucks into the Lachin district.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists in Lachin town saw a line of Azerbaijani trucks flanked by military vehicles from Russia, which brokered the peace settlement.

Like in Aghdam and Kalbajar, the Armenian population of Lachin left the area ahead of the handover, taking livestock, firewood, furniture and even plastic water pipes.

Some of them burnt their homes as they left, and on Monday evening two houses on the outskirts of Lachin town were seen in flames.

The column of a dozen Azerbaijani military trucks moved slowly overnight along the corridor in the direction of the Armenian border, with Russian military vehicles at the head and rear.

While the current population leaves the area, some formerly displaced Armenians have been returning to the liberated Nagorno-Karabakh alongside the displaced Azerbaijanis.

Russia's defense ministry, which is helping with the returns, said on Monday that more than 25,000 people who fled the fighting had been brought back.

In a televised address on Tuesday, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev celebrated the dawn of "a new reality".

"We've driven the enemy out of our lands. We've restored our territorial integrity. We've ended the occupation," he said.

Aliyev also hailed the restoration of control over the areas as a historic achievement.

"We all lived with one dream and now we fulfilled it," Aliyev said and added: "We won a victory on the battlefield and on the political arena, and that victory opens a new era for our country. It will be an era of development, security and progress."

The Lachin region, which lies between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, was the last of the three areas on the rim of Nagorno-Karabakh to be surrendered by Armenian forces on Tuesday.

Relations between the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Baku liberated several strategic cities, towns and nearly 300 of its settlements and villages from the Armenian occupation during the recent fighting.

Before this, about 20% of Azerbaijan's territory had been under illegal Armenian occupation for nearly three decades.

The ex-Soviet rivals signed a Moscow-brokered peace deal on Nov. 9, ending weeks of heavy fighting, and documenting that Armenia will surrender several territories to Baku.