Baku: Armenia responsible for mass killing of Azerbaijanis in 1918
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva has said that Armenia is responsible for mass killing of Azerbaijanis in 1918.
“Historical facts show that the Armenian armed forces started the mass extermination of the civilian population of Baku, Shamakhi, Guba, Karabakh since March 1918, which continued from June through October of that year in Zangazur and Nakhchivan counties. Yerevan knows this very well,” Abdullayeva said.
Abdullayeva stressed that the mass killing of Azerbaijanis by Armenians in 1918 are documented in memoirs by Armenian Bolshevik Stepan Shaumyan and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of the 1926 edition.
She also recalled the Khojaly massacre in 1992 that saw the killing of 613 Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces during the occupation of the town.
She further reminded former Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan’s famous statement in which he said: “Before Khojaly, the Azerbaijanis thought that it was possible to joke with Armenians, they thought that the Armenians were unable to raise hand on civilian population. We managed to break this stereotype. That's what happened.”
She was commenting on Armenian Foreign Ministry’s recent statement about “centenary” of the alleged disorders in Aylis village of Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan.
Abdullayeva added that while continuing practice of its predecessors, the current Armenian authorities often disseminate extremely unconvincing fabrications.
She called on the Armenian authorities to cease fabricating history, to abandon unreasonable claims for Azerbaijan’s territories, withdraw its armed forces from the Azerbaijani territories and think about taking concrete steps to resolve the conflict and ensure the conditions for the co-existence of Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
Tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis were killed by Armenian nationalists in three days of slaughter at the end of March 1918.
---
Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz