Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

California State Assembly's Rules Committee held a hearing on the pro-Armenian resolution calling to recognize a separatist regime in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan on May 5.

The resolution (AJR 32) introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gatto at the behest of the Armenian lobby. Gatto submitted the proposal to California State Legislature on January 6.

If passed by both houses of the State Legislature, the resolution would call on the U.S. government to recognize the puppet regime called "NKR" which was installed on Azerbaijan's lands occupied by Armenia, Azerbaijani Consulate General in Los-Angeles said.

Before the hearing started, many members of California's Azerbaijani community held a protest action outside the State Capitol in Sacramento against this biased and flawed resolution.

Azerbaijanis then packed the hearing room on the Capitol, hugely outnumbering the Armenian participants.

The hearing started with remarks by Mike Gatto, followed by the Armenian member of the Assembly Katcho Achadjian, who presented a well distorted view of the conflict.

Gatto represents the Armenian-populated areas of the Los Angeles County since 2010. Gatto has received tens of thousands in campaign donations from the Armenian community since 2009, according to California Secretary of State (http://www.sos.ca.gov) who is also responsible for recording all political campaign contributions in the state.

Following Gatto's remarks the chair opened the floor for testimonies from the Armenian side, who offered three presentations void of any logic and content.

"In a nutshell, their main racist message could be summed up as "Armenians are ancient Christians and Azerbaijanis are Muslims. So whatever we do, you should support us," the Consulate General said.

After the Armenian testimonies ended, the Azerbaijani side presented four testimonies.

Taking the floor first, the head of Azerbaijan's Mountainous Jewish Community Milikh Yevdayev spoke of the strong traditions of tolerance in Azerbaijan highlighting primarily the life of Azerbaijan's ancient Jewish community, who, he said, lived in Azerbaijan since 2000 years without any persecution or discrimination.

Recalling his countless trips to Nagorno-Karabakh during the Soviet times, Yevdayev noted that never ever he witnessed any Armenian wishing to get separated from Azerbaijan.

"Armenians enjoyed living in Azerbaijan - in this multi-ethnic and tolerant society," he said.

Yevdayev further stressed that "despite much blood and tears shed, military occupation and ethnic cleansing committed against Azerbaijan by Armenia, today you can find over 25,000 Armenians still living in Baku and other major cities of Azerbaijan, which speaks volumes about the high level of tolerance of the Azerbaijani people."

At the end, he called on the Committee to reject the resolution.

Speaking at the hearing, the Azerbaijani-American Council President Ismayil Rustamov stressed that so-called "NKR" had not been recognized by the U.S. or any other country of the world. "So why in this case would California need to do it?" he asked.

Highlighting Armenia's foreign policy, Rustamov said during the Crimea crisis Armenia sided with countries such as North Korea, Syria and Sudan. "Azerbaijan, however, has always been a reliable ally of the U.S.," he said.

Following these remarks, Elnur Aydinov from Los Angeles told his and his family's story as a victim of the ethnic cleansing carried out by Armenia against its own Azerbaijani population, who before 1988 amounted to more than 350,000, and who were all expelled when the conflict started.

The testimonies were concluded with a presentation by Tural Badirkhanli, who said the resolution refers to the "national liberation movement" in Nagorno-Karabakh and deliberately neglects to mention how this so-called "movement" was carried out in reality.

"Based on facts, I will tell you how: through many horrible war crimes that Armenia committed against the Azerbaijani civilians," he said.

Badirkhanli broadly informed the audience about the Khojaly Massacre which was committed by Armenian armed forces against the Azerbaijani civilians in 1992 and was called by Human Rights Watch the "largest massacre in the conflict.

He concluded his testimony by urging the legislators not to "reward" Armenia for the Khojaly Massacre and other war crimes it committed.

Taking the floor, Assemblyman Rocky Chavez expressed his opposition to the resolution, by stating that the Legislature should be very careful with international affairs.

Referring to the Azerbaijani testimonies on ethnic cleansing by Armenia against Azerbaijanis, he implied that the self-determination cannot be achieved with ethnic cleansing.

Chavez also mentioned that if applied everywhere around the globe, the principle of self-determination can precipitate grave consequences for the world.

Speaking afterwards, Armenian member of the Committee Adrin Nazarian, pro-Armenian members Scott Wilk and Cheryl Brown, who illegally visited Nagorno-Karabakh last year, offered extremely distorted and biased views on the conflict.

"Highlighting only the needs of Karabakh's Armenians for life in dignity, they did not even consider it necessary to touch on human sufferings that over a million Azerbaijani refugees had to endure due to ethnic cleansing and occupation by Armenia. They completely ignored the vast body of evidence presented to them on the conflict by the Azerbaijani side and concentrated instead on the Armenian propaganda," the Consulate General said.

Following the remarks, the chair put the resolution to vote that passed 9 to 1.

Now, the Armenian lobby has announced that the resolution will be considered on the Assembly floor on May 8, which is not a randomly chosen date.

This date marks 22 years of occupation of Azerbaijan's ancient Shusha city.The 1992 occupation was carried out with brutal ethnic cleansing and resulted in the killing of hundreds of Azerbaijanis.

"So with the passage of the resolution on this day, the Armenian lobby wants to "celebrate" this "victory", which was achieved at the expense of many innocent Azerbaijani lives and ongoing suffering of refugees from Shusha and other occupied regions. That's simply immoral and disgraceful," the Consulate General said.