Hundreds of thousands of Armenians took to the streets of Stepanakert in 1988 calling for reunification with Armenia
Monday marked the 35th anniversary of the Artsakh Liberation Movement. It was on February 20, 1988 when a special session of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Regional Council was convened in Stepanakert, passing a decision to appeal to the Kremlin to reunite Karabakh with Armenia. And thus began the movement for the self-determination of the people of Artsakh, who had taken to the streets to make that historic demand.
Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, State Minister Ruben Vardanyan and Parliament Speaker Artur Tovmasyan visited the Stepanakert Memorial Complex on Monday and paid tribute to Artsakh’s fallen heroes, as a result of whose sacrifice the Liberation Movement brought the Armenian Nation a victory.
The Artsakh foreign ministry on Monday called the Artsakh Liberation Movement “a struggle that embodied the collective aspiration of the people to restore historical justice, preserve national identity and dignity, and fully realize their inalienable right to live freely and develop in their homeland. In response to the decades-long discriminatory policies of Azerbaijan, the people of Artsakh gathered all their will and rallied for the idea of the revival of Artsakh and reunification with Armenia.”
“Thirty-five years ago, on February 20, 1988, an extraordinary session of the Council of People’s Deputies of the NKAO was held, which decided to petition the Supreme Soviets of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR to transfer the autonomous region from Azerbaijan to Armenia. The issue of the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia was raised in a democratic, parliamentary way, on the basis of the people’s will, in strict accordance with the Soviet legislation in force at that time and the generally recognized norms of international law,” said the Foreign Ministry statement.
“The decision of the session, which confirmed the right of the people of Artsakh to decide their own destiny, marked the current stage of the Karabakh Movement and predetermined the prospects for the socio-political development of Nagorno-Karabakh. It, in fact, became the forerunner of the Declaration of Independence the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, adopted on 2 September 1991, under the new historical and political realities created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and marked the beginning of the path to the state independence of Artsakh,” explained the foreign ministry.
“This act of a nationwide _expression_ of will by the people of Artsakh was rightly regarded as a reliable guarantee against the policy of discrimination of the ethnic Armenian population pursued by Azerbaijan for decades, which ultimately should have led to its complete destruction,” the statement added.
“Subsequent events confirmed the legitimacy and rightness of the historical choice of the people of Artsakh. Just a week after the session of the regional Council, the Azerbaijani authorities organized brutal pogroms and murders of Armenians in Sumgait and other cities of Azerbaijan, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, they unleashed a full-scale war against Artsakh. The criminal policy of official Baku, aimed at the destruction of the people of Artsakh, has not changed even decades later. This is evidenced by the military aggressions of 2016 and 2020, the ongoing state terrorism against the people of Artsakh, as well as the transport and energy blockade of the Republic that has been going on for the third month already,” the statement said.
“Despite the incredible difficulties and trials, the people of Artsakh continue the struggle for their free and independent existence in the historical homeland, thereby realizing the right of peoples to self-determination, enshrined in international law, including the UN Charter. The past 35 years have clearly demonstrated that the most important prerequisite for solving national problems is national unity, the consolidation of the moral and spiritual forces of Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora, which makes it possible to confront the most serious challenges of the time,” the Artsakh foreign ministry said.
“Through many years of struggle for national dignity and the right to freely decide their own fate in their historical homeland, as well as the creation of a democratic and viable state, the people of Artsakh have proven that they deserve recognition of their independence by the international community,” the statement said.
Harutyunyan, Vardanyan, the Artsakh Parliament and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also marked the 35th anniversary of the Artsakh Liberation Movement in separate statements.