Khazar Ibragim, the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, in today's edition of Today.AZ is in offensive mode saying "Armenia not only held ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan but also continues to occupy Azerbaijani lands."
This is outright lie because it is the mass killings of Armenians in Sumgait in February 1988 and in Baku that escalated the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan prompting people to take arms.
Many educated people know about how people of Azerbaijan massacred ethnic Armenians in the azeri city of Sumgait. U.S. congressman Frank Pallone in 2006 has called for recognition of Sumgait Massacres of ethnic Armenians. "Mr. Speaker, I stand to recognize the massacres in Sumgait, Azerbaijan and the continued Turkish and Azeri aggression against the Armenian people."
Mr. Pallone goes on saying "Mr. Speaker, These crimes were never adequately prosecuted by the government of Azerbaijan, and most of its organizers and executors were set free. Despite the attempt by the government of Azerbaijan to cover up these crimes, enough brave witnesses came forward to give an accurate account of these offenses."
This is what has result in the present negotiation stage to recognize the self-determination rights of the Armenian community of Nagorno Karabakh. If the Kosovo Albanians think that due to the massacres of Serbs it's impossible to live with Serbia and Kosovo should be independent state, the same holds true in case of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
Armenia will mark the 20th anniversary of the Armenian massacres in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait. Vartan Oskanian, the Foreign Minister of Armenia noted that Sumgait is highly important because it is closely connected with the Karabakh conflict. The military component of the Karabakh conflict settlement originated in Sumgait and if Azerbaijan wants to make peace with Armenia it needs to remember this and condemn any ethnic cleanising. The first attempt of ethnic cleansings took place there, and led the people of Karabakh to the irreversibility of the idea of self-determination and independence of Nagorno Karabakh.
Posted January 9th, 2008 by erku
Dear Sir/Madam
You may want to educate yourself on this issue before you write your next comments. Only after you do your homework you will see that whatever is Mr. Khazar Ibragim is saying is the truth.
Unfortunately, we have to state again that Armenian leadership tries to present historical facts in the light, favorable for Armenia, thus, misleading people", spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan Khazar Ibragim said.
Thus, the representative of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan commented on today's announcement of the Foreign Minister of Armenia Vardan Oskanyan, according to whom, ethnic cleansing is a common feature of the Kosovo and Garabagh conflicts.
"Unfortunately, the Kosovo problem differs from the Garabagh conflict on the said parameter as Armenia not only held ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan but also continues to occupy Azerbaijani lands", the official representative of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan noted.
"We, as well as foreign reporters and representatives of different international organizations and countries, have seen and international organizations, including those, engaged in protection of human rights and humanitarian issues, have mentioned that it was Armenia which conducted ethnic cleansing on the territory of Azerbaijan.
There are a number of irrefutable facts of how innocent residents were killed for the only reason of being Azerbaijanis. This is an ethnic cleansing, whose culmination was the bloodshed in the Khodjaly city of Azerbaijan, committed on February 26, 1992", Kh.Ibragim said.
Kh.Ibragim noted that the Azerbaijani side mainly demands the withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the territory of Azerbaijan and the return of IDPs to their home, in the framework of the Prague negotiation process on the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Garabagh conflict.
"Therefore, I think Armenia should define exactly and demonstrate what is going on now and what was going on in the past", the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan concluded.
You really are misleading the reader in your article. It is also NOT true that Serbs massacred Albanians. The war was fought where civilians unfortunately died. The estimate today is that around 5000 civilians from both Serbian and Albanian sides died in Kosovo. NATO killed over 3000 civilians in their air raids over Serbian skies. I can see that you are stretching the truth for your political point, however I think you have gone a little too far.
I hope that no one reads this piece of complete and utter irresponsible writing or should I say propaganda.
QARA BAGH belong to AZERBAIJAN. We will expel armenian army from our historical lands.
Hey guys, it is abvious that the foregn reader will know that since this story accusses Azerbaijan of the massacres of Armenians and all the comments are anonymous, not verified, defending the Azerbaijan's position that all the commentators are from Azerbaijan.
Therefore the comments are discredited and will not have the intended effect.
However, we need to look back to our history and see what we have done to Armenians. The world population knows how to read books and analyze historical materials. They are not stupid. See how Turkey is loosing the battel of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide? They are now already forced to change the 301 Article in their law.
We should see what we have done wrong and condemn it, and let the international community read and say, look the people of Azerbaijan are able to reflect and condemn bad things like Europeans. They are able to have a civilized dialogue.
But if you have comments like "will expel armenian army from our historical lands" how do you expect Armenians ever agree to live in peace with us? Does Kosovo agree to live in peace with Serbia after what happenend?
Dear sir,
Armenians will live in peace with you only because you are one of them. The last name that you identified yourself is spelled Jalaloglu not Jalalogly.
:) This is really funny. An Armenian above identifying himself as Azeri "Mahmoud Jalalogly" and talking on "behalf" of Azeri people. However stupid your comments are, Azeris did not commit any massacres unlike your Armenian friends in 1905-1907, 1918-1920, 1948-1953, 1992, etc. Azerbaijanis did not blow up buses and trains on Azeri and Georgian highways, railroad and subway stations unlike Armenians in 1988-1994. Azerbaijanis did not claim their historical lands of Zangezur and Irevan from where over 500,000 Azeris have been relocated in 1920-23 and 1948-53. So, DO read your history first, and DO recognize it.
Armenians are guilty of massacres and should leave Azerbaijani lands or stay if they accept the territorial integrity of Republic of Azerbaijan as much as the international community does.
Hey guys, I am an Armenian and I want to talk about something else. Looking forward.
Assumptions:
People of Karabakh will never get back to Azerbaijan due to the brutalities against them
Azerbaijan can only try to claim the land with war.
Compromoize is POSSIBLE
QUESITON TO PEOPLE OF AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA
I read a nice article about how should Armenians support Baku's bid to host Olympic games 2016.
Azerbaijan has to make billions of dollar offer to make its package attractive to the Armenian people of Karabakh, but on the other hand, it's less likely that Armenians will agree and any way, Karabakh does not have resources, so the land is always going to consume oil dollars of Azerbaijan. Armenians will not agree to this and there will be war and our generation will never see a good day in our life.
On the other hand, Armenians can support Baku's bid to host 20016 Olympic Games. Instead of War, let's host Olympic Games, and bring world's attention to our region. DOWN THE ROAD WE NEED TO MAKE OUR MARKETS MORE ATTRACTIVE FOR FOREIGNERS TO INVEST. COMPANIES LIKE FORD AND GENERAL MOTORS WILL NEVER COME TO OUR REGION BECAUSE EACH COUNTRY HAS LIKE 4-7 MILLION POPULATION. BUT ALL TOGETHER WE HAVE 16-20 MILLION POPULATION, enough to attract multi-billion dollar investments.
Instead of War Azerbaijan can choose to have Olympic games, which brings, billions of dollars to the country, millions of tourists, attention of world media. AZERBAIJAN WILL NEVER HOST 2016 OLYMPICS IF IT STARTS WAR.
So Azerbaijan and Armenia as good neighbors can make a compromise. Can make a deal: Armenia, Armenian diaspora and the international community supports Azerbaijan's bid to host 2016 Olympic Games in Baku as a symbol of Peace Deal. Azerbaijan recognizes Karabakh self-determination right. Everybody benefits. We have peace and development. No War. Here is a very interesting article about this analysis titled Olympic Games 2016 To Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh To Armenia.
I think, it is Armenia who needs to start bidding to get some investment in Armenia due to severing economy which is basically owned by Russian Federation with 80% of the country's economy in the hands of Russian state and private enterprises.
I think it is Armenia who needs to think about returning internationally recognized sovereighn territories of Azerbaijan which are currently under Armenian occupation, so that the economic blockade is lifted and Armenian citizens and businesses directly enjoy trade with neighboring Turkey and Azerbaijan, and so that Armenia becomes a part of regional projects.
I think it's Armenia which needs to forget its illegal claims for territories of neighboring countries such as Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, and most likely Iran within the next 100 years, and start living real life without prejudice, without hatred, without stalking.
I think it is Armenia which needs to, as a state, elect an independent President and administration who will not be a puppet of Armenian diaspora which disregards the lives of suffering from unemployment and lack of money Armenian citizens and a President who is not even an Armenian citizen.
I think it's Armenia which will be forced to return all illegally occupied territories of Upper and Lower Karabakh back to Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan is not, has not, and will not oppose a referendum provided that it's held within the fundamental principles of law and order.
The law dictated referendum in NKAO was possible only with all state refrendum, that is referendum to be held in Azerbaijan as a whole since NKAO was a part of Azerbaijan. Please refer to USSR Constitution of 1977.
Armenians chose to act differently, which finally led to war. Azerbaijan just like any other state will not trade its territorial integrity for billions or trillions of dollars, neither Olympic games, nor a strip of Armenian land. Karabakh is a de-jure territory of Republic of Azerbaijan and will always be an integral part of it. I don't know whether it will be returned by war or peace, but it will be returned sooner or later.
Comment
With all due respect, are you really out of your mind?
Do you forget what preceded Sumgait events?
Armenians started asking for illegal unification of NKAO as early as August of 1987, and Agembekyan addressed the issue on the open in November 1987 in Paris. The Sumgait clashes were preceded by killings of two Azeri youth by Armenian crowd in Askeran. That was followed by exodus of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, which led to KGB and Groong organized pogroms in Sumgait. Let me also remind you that the leader of bands in Sumgait was an ethnic Armenian Groong member, Edik Grigorian, who was apprehended but later freed in Moscow for unknown but "apparent" reasons.
Let me also remind you and your Rep. Pallone, who has an Armenian mistress and thousands of Armenians in his district, that Armenians massacred 613 unarmed civilians in Khojaly.
So, please don't mislead the international community yourself by your unscholarly so called article