On Monday Colombia’s parliament adopted a resolution condemning the occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan along with surrounding districts, as well as the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis by Armenia.

The resolution, approved by the Second Committee of the Colombian Parliament on Foreign Affairs, Security and National Defense within the House of Representatives, called for the full restoration of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

The resolution reflects the position of the Colombian government, stating that peaceful negotiations based on international legal mechanism, including the relevant resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council, and immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces stationed inside and surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh region, should set the grounds for finding a durable solution to the conflict that has been simmering for over a quarter century. The parliamentary resolution also calls for the return of Azerbaijani internally displaced persons to their homes.

The recent resolution has cemented the position of and previous statements made by the Colombian government regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In 2012, the Colombian senate unanimously recognized the killing of over 613 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly in February 1992 as genocide. A year later, in 2013, the Second Committee of the Colombian Parliament on Foreign Affairs, Security and National Defense adopted a resolution on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Khojaly genocide. Colombia is one of 15 countries that recognize the massacre in Khojaly as genocide committed by Armenian forces.

Late into the night on February 25, 1992 – just shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union – Armenian forces, backed by the Infantry Guard Regiment No. 366 from a collapsed Soviet army, invaded the town of Khojaly, located in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Armenian forces killed 613 people, including 106 women, 63 children and 70 elderly people, and took hostage 1,275 others. Another 150 Azerbaijani nationals went missing, whose fates remain unknown to this day. Those suffering major injuries or having been maimed totaled 487, including 76 children.

The massacre in Khojaly was part of a broader military campaign by Armenia to seize Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region that had a partial ethnic Armenian population living side by side with indigenous Azerbaijanis. The Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan and shares no border with Armenia, had been eyed by Armenian nationalists since the late 1980s, when the USSR was slowly but surely collapsing. After independence, Armenia kicked off military aggression against sovereign Azerbaijan, occupying Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts, comprising roughly 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory.

Khojaly was heavily shelled and left without power for months when it came under a sudden but well-organized attack by Armenian forces. Azerbaijanis there were forced to flee as they were ambushed by Armenian military troops. Attempts by residents to escape via mountains and forests ultimately failed. Dozens of people are reported to have frozen to death in what were cold winter temperatures.

The massacre in Khojaly is widely remembered throughout Azerbaijan as a pinnacle of the Armenian aggression when mass murder with an ethnic bent was one of the darkest moments in a three-year war fought between the two South Caucasus neighbors between 1991 and 1994. The war claimed the lives of over 30,000 Azerbaijanis, while nearly one million Azerbaijanis were internally displaced and 4,000 went missing. The full-scale war came to a stop in 1994, thanks to a ceasefire, but Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts are still occupied by Armenia.

Fifteen countries from around the world such as the Czech Republic, Romania, Mexico, Colombia and Pakistan as well as Scotland from the United Kingdom and 20 state governments in the United States, including California, Massachusetts, Texas and Pennsylvania, have officially recognized the events in Khojaly as genocide of Azerbaijanis.