Azerbaijanis hold protest against Sargsyan in Paris
By Rashid Shirinov
Diaspora organizations of Azerbaijan held a protest action in Paris against Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to France.
The rally started with a minute of silence to honor the memory of martyrs, who died during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Khojaly massacre, Azerbaijan’s State Committee for Work with Diaspora reported.
The participants spoke of the ethnic cleansing policy perpetrated by Armenians against Azerbaijanis, as well as the Khojaly Genocide.
Participants of the rally said that the occupation policy of Armenia is a threat to peace and security in the region, and urged the international community to give a fair assessment of the conflict. Speakers noted that Serzh Sargsyan - one of the organizers of the Khojaly Genocide and active participant in the occupation of Azerbaijani lands, must answer to justice.
Armenian aggression against its neighboring country resulted in the occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territories, death of over 20,000 Azerbaijanis while over 4,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were taken captive, hostage, or went missing as a result of the war.
The Khojaly Genocide on February 25-26, 1992, is regarded as one of the bloodiest and most controversial incidents of the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Some 613 civilians mostly women and children were killed in the massacre, and a total of 1,000 people were disabled. Eight families were exterminated, 25 children lost both parents, and 130 children.
Besides, in the years of 1989-1994, Armenian terrorists have blasted passenger busses, passenger trains and blew up electric train at Baku subway to spread horror among the Azerbaijani population during the Karabakh war.
The protestors shouted slogans "Justice for Khojaly”, “Khojaly was and will be our", "Freedom for Karabakh”, “Sargsyan - the criminal, violate the rights of one million Azerbaijani refugees”, “Sargsyan is murderer!”, “Killer Sargsyan, your place is court” “Armenians, put an end to lies!”, “ASALA is a terrorist organization!” and others.
“The visit of the murderer, who is involved in the Khojaly Genocide, to Europe is unacceptable. If Europe opens the doors before Sargsyan, then it is impossible to speak about justice here,” the protesters said. “We demand from Europe to put an end to the injustice.”
President of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan, a member of the French National Assembly Jean-Francois Mansel, who was among the protestors, stressed the necessity of recognition of Khojaly Massacre in international arena.
He said 20 percent of Azerbaijan`s territories were occupied by Armenian Armed Forces, further noting that France should play a great role in restoring the peace between the two Caucasian people.
French lawyer Olivier Pardo, who also participated in the protest action, said that people were killed only for their ethnicity in the Khojaly Genocide, and it is a crime against humanity. The lawyer urged the protesters to join him in a struggle for France's recognition of the Khojaly Genocide.
“To forget the memory of the killed Khojaly civilians means to kill them once again,” said Pardo. He urged the protesters to memorialize the victims and achieve recognition of the genocide.
When Thomas de Waal, a senior associate at Washington DC-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, interviewed Sargsyan back in 2000, the then-Armenian Defense Minister Sargsyan confessed that the Armenian army had indeed carried out some ethnic cleansing in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in order to achieve its goals.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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