Georgian-based Armenian NGO has issued a statement regarding the recent developments around the statue of Karabakh war hero Michael Avagyan. A group of Georgian citizens of Azerbaijani origin held on Friday protest outside the building of Georgian parliament on Friday demanding to remove the statue of Karabakh war hero Michael Avagyan that was unveiled in Bugashen village of Georgia’s Armenian-populated Samtskhe-Javakheti region.

“The unveiling of the statue to Mikhail Avagyan in his native Bughashen village sparked an anger among members of the Azerbaijani community of Georgia and MPs of Azerbaijani origin. If the erection of a statue dedicated to memory of the man who was born in the same village may cause an outrage, we demand dismantling of the monument to Jalil Safarov in Lezhbadon village of Marneuli region, who actively participated in the Karabakh war and killed numerous Armenians, including civilians, for which was named an Azerbaijani hero,” the part of the statement reads.

The authors of the statement also condemn disinformation of the Azerbaijani sources claiming Avagyan had been a participant of the Abkhazian war, pointing he worked in Abkhazia in 1990 as a police officer and couldn’t have participated in the war that started in only 1992.

 To remind, the statue is of a native to the region – Mikhael Avagyan, who died during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s, was solemnly opened on January 20 in his native village. The ceremony was attended by the Armenian Ambassador Ruben Sadoyan, the head of the district administration, the local government as well as members of the Georgian parliaments of Armenian origin. This has caused outrage on social media and a strong reaction from Azerbaijan, that even summoned the Georgian Ambassador in Baku.