ARMEN ASHOTYAN: WE CAN FORGIVE PEOPLE, BUT CANNOT FORGIVE THE STATE OF AZERBAIJAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.01.2010 14:01 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenia’s Minister of Education and Science Armen
Ashotyan held a public lesson in the Yerevan school N 187, devoted to
the topic of Armenian pogroms in Baku in 1990. He told students the
history of Baku and a role the Armenians played in the development of
that city, and mainly focusing on the Armenian pogroms in Baku. "Some
of my ancestors by my father’s side were from Western Armenia, they
moved to Armenia after the Armenian Genocide, The ancestors by my
mother’s side came from Zangezur. My mother studied in Baku, and her
family moved to Yerevan after the Baku pogroms, " Armen Ashotyan said,
adding that in nearly every family in Armenia, somebody witnessed the
Genocide. He also stressed that does not want the current generation
remember their forefathers as refugees or victims of the Genocide.

"We can forgive people, but we cannot forgive the state of Azerbaijan,
which still maintains the policy of biological annihilation of the
Armenians," Ashotyan stressed. According to him, the Baku pogroms
proved that Armenians cannot live in Azerbaijan, as it was in Soviet
times. "The people of Karabakh cannot live within Azerbaijan, since
in that state rights of even its own citizens are totally violated,"
Armen Ashotyan said.

The Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia conducts History
lessons in secondary schools on the topic of Armenian pogroms in Baku
in 1990.

On January 13, 1990, the Azerbaijani authorities instigated the the
Armenian pogroms of Baku. Some 400 Armenians were killed and 200
thousand were exiled in the period of January 13-19. The exact number
of those killed was never determined, as no investigation was carried
out into the crimes.

On the above-mentioned date, a crowd numbering 50 thousand people
divided into groups and started "cleaning" the city of Armenians. On
January 17, the European Parliament called on EU Council of Foreign
Ministers and European Council to protect Armenians and render
assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On January 18, a group of
U.S. Senators sent a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev to express concerns
over the violence against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan and
called for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.