AZERBAIJAN’S ATTITUDE TO KARABAKH ARMENIANS WAS POLICY OF PERMANENT GENOCIDE: NKR PRESIDENT

YEREVAN, APRIL 21. ARMINFO. What was the attitude of Azerbaijan to
the Karabakh Armenians if not a policy of permanent genocide, NKR
President Arkady Goukassyan said during today’s Yerevan international
conference on the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The best evidence is the history of former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous
Region where the Azeri authorities consistenly worked to change
demography to later abolish autonomy.

They discriminated against the NKAR Armenians in economical, social
and cultural life. They banned any economic or cultural links with
Armenia. They destroyed monuments and distorted history. They presented
Armenians as enemies of Azeris and all other Turkic nations. The
same has been done in Nakhichevan where there already was no single
Armenian by mid XX. So the sad fate of Nakhichevan must be presented
to the international community as a vivid example of what Karabakh
would have faced had it remained within Azerbaijan any longer.

The above actions by the Azeri authorities were just preparation for
a large-scale bloody genocide. The Azeri leaders did not even care to
hide that they considered the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey an
example to follow. They proved to be worthy pupils of their teachers
when they started killing and deporting Armenians from Sumqayit, Baku,
Ganca, Shamkhor, Semakha and other districts, shelling Stepanakert,
massacring women, old people and children in Maraga, chocking Karabakh
in a blockade. This all is internationally defined as genocide,
says Goukassyan.