Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
April 26 2008

Baku Calls Firing of Azerbaijan and Turkish Flags as Brutality (video)
26.04.08 15:02

Azerbaijan, Baku, 26 April / corr Trend News K.Ramazanova / Baku calls
the firing of Azerbaijani and Turkish flags as brutality.

`These actions by Armenia show the world their true face,’ Araz
Azimov, the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, told journalists in Baku on
26 April.

Azimov said that Azerbaijan follows the laws and does not intend to
take similar steps. `We witnessed such actions in the past,’ he said.

On 25 April the flags of Turkey and Azerbaijan were fired in Yerevan
on 25 April during the ceremony dedicated to the victims of the
so-called `Armenian genocide’.

Armenia accuses Ankara of genocide of 1,500 Armenians in 1915-1917
during the Ottoman Empire. There are not any diplomatic relations
between Armenian and Turkey, whereas the Armenian- Turkish border was
closed in 1993 at Ankara’s initiative.

Turkey rebuffs accusations by Armenia and confirms that during the
inter-ethnic conflict, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the
beginning of the last century, many Muslim Turks were killed along
with Christian Armenians. The Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan offered
to research the issue with the help of historical achieves of both
countries, whilst Armenia did not favour it.Ankara’s principle
position on the issue states that in 1915 Armenians were internally
displaced due to political interests of Ottoman Empire and that cannot
be considered as genocide against the nation.