Armenpress News Agency, Armenia
 Saturday


Sumgait pogroms must be shifted to int'l legislative arena, says sociologist


YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. The fact of the large scale
massacres of Armenians in 1988 committed by Azerbaijani authorities in
Sumgait, Azerbaijan must be shifted to the international legislative
arena, sociologist Aharon Adibekyan, director of the Sociometer
Sociological Center said at a press conference.

“Armenia must shift the fact of the Sumgait Pogroms to the
international legislative arena in order for it to be evaluated as
genocide organized against Armenians in the end of the 20th century.
It will also have a preventive nature for such countries, and Armenia
will receive moral compensation”, Adibekyan said.

According to him, the Azeri state sanctioned massacres of Armenians in
Sumgait were directed against the Karabakh Movement.

“The Sumgait pogrom was Azerbaijan’s response to the Karabakh
struggle, an attempt to intimidate Armenians,” Adibekyan said.

He mentioned that this resulted in 400,000 people emigrating from
Azerbaijan. “Nearly 200,000 from them moved to Armenia”, he said.

Soviet troops were brought into Sumgait at the next day of the
pogroms, and according to official data nearly 300 soldiers were
wounded. “Imagine the scale of the pogroms if a division suffered that
many wounded,” he said.

English –translator/editor: Stepan Kocharyan