KAREN NAZARYAN SUBMITTED LETTER TO UN SEC GEN ON BAKU AND SUMGAIT EVENTS

news.am

Feb 24 2010
Armenia

On the occasion of the anniversary of tragic events of Sumgait
and Baku, as well as on the pogroms and massacres of the Armenian
population in other Azeri cities, RA Permanent Representative to
UN, Ambassador Karen Nazaryan has submitted a letter to the UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ambassador’s letter states that the Azerbaijani side keeps spreading
very low in quality and cheap in content propaganda materials with the
sole target to mislead the international community through impressive
falsifications and defamatory facts and figures.

"I regret the fact that Azerbaijan does not cease playing the game of
getting into the image of victim of so-called &’Armenian aggression.’
With this aim Azerbaijan falsifies not only the well-known truth
about the tragic events, but also the witnesses of the Azerbaijani
sources of the time. The cynicism of the way it’s done is frightening
in its simplicity".

Ambassador Karen Nazaryan also refers to the interview of the former
President of Azerbaijan Ayaz Mutalibov with Czech journalist Dana
Mazalova in April 1992. Mutalibov stated that the militia of the
Azerbaijani National Front actively obstructed and actually prevented
the evacuation of the local civilian population from the military
operation zone through the mountain passages specifically left open
by Karabakhi Armenians. The hope and intention of the Azerbaijani
opposition was to utilize civilian losses of such a magnitude to
instigate a popular uprising against the Baku regime and seize the
reins of power.

In a witness account brought by The Helsinki Watch report of September
1992 an Azerbaijani woman is quoted as confirming that Armenians had
notified the Azerbaijani civilian population to leave the town with
white flags raised. In fact the Azerbaijani militia shot those who
attempted to flee.

The letter further notes that "The international community has already
witnessed and confirmed the countless atrocities of Azerbaijani
Government towards the defenseless Armenian population. As a response
to a peaceful and constitutional demand of the Nagorno-Karabakh people
to exercise its right to self-determination, the Azeri authorities
organized an armed mob which launched pogroms against Armenians living
in the Azeri city of Sumgait in 1988. These massacres were the first
acts of mass killings on the territory of Soviet Union, as witnessed
by the criminal proceedings launched by the Soviet authorities.

Immediately after declaring its independence Azerbaijan freed the
accused murderers and openly saluted them as national heroes through
mass media.

Armenian Ambassador strongly believes that the better solution
would be the restoration of the fundamental and lawful rights of the
Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh by addressing their inalienable
right to self-determination."