Azernews.Az

By Trend

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has called on the House of Representatives of the Dutch Parliament to avoid double standards.

"We see the decision of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Netherlands related to the fictitious "genocide of Armenians" as biased," Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in Baku Feb. 23.

Earlier it was reported that the Dutch Parliament adopted a resolution on the recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide.

In her turn, Acting Foreign Minister of the Netherlands Sigrid Kaag said that the country’s government will not follow the example of the parliament. Kaag said that the Cabinet of Ministers will continue to show restraint.

“It is wrong to use falsifications in political purposes,” Hajiyev added.

“Pursuing shady political goals, the Armenian side continues to refuse from disclosing historical archives and joint research of the so-called Armenian genocide by historians," Hajiyev said.

As for the historical facts, Hajiyev stressed that during the World War I, Armenians committed massacre and other atrocities against the population, for its ethnicity, in Anatolia, as well as in the historic Azerbaijani lands of Zangezur, Goyce mahali, Karabakh, including the genocide against Azerbaijanis in March 1918 in Baku and other Azerbaijani cities.

Hajiyev added that since the late 1980s, as a result of Armenian aggression and occupation against Azerbaijan, numerous war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide were committed.

“More than one million Azerbaijanis were subjected to bloody ethnic cleansing in Armenia and occupied Azerbaijani territories,” he said.

"The most terrible of these acts is the Khojaly genocide committed in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region on February 26, 1992 with the personal participation and command of the Armenian current military and political leadership of Armenia," he said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

On Feb. 25-26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces, together with the 366th infantry regiment of Soviet troops, stationed in Khankendi, committed an act of genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly. As many as 613 people, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old people were killed in the massacre. Eight families were totally exterminated, 130 children lost one parent and 25 children lost both. Some 1,275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 people still remains unknown.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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