Azernews.Az

A Lithuanian newspaper editor has called for arresting those responsible for a massacre of Azerbaijani civilians in the town of Khojaly in 1992 during the war with Armenia.
"Mostly the elderly, women and children were slain in Khojaly. The war criminals who committed this must be arrested," the Lazdiyay Star newspaper’s editor, Richardas Lapaytis, who has paid six visits to the Armenia-occupied Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh region of Azerbaijan, told a roundtable on Thursday.
Lapaytis said his Lithuanian counterparts were appalled when they saw the photos about the Khojaly massacre he had taken on-site. "When I showed the photos to Lithuanian journalists, I was asked ‘where did you take them?’ and told ‘they are so terrible that we can’t publish them.’"
Imantas Melyanas, the adviser for the chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s economics committee, said the Armenian lobby had at the time managed to shape an opinion in his country that Armenians were allegedly an oppressed nation.
"This propaganda was so strong that, initially, no one was delving into whether or not it was true. The Lithuanian public thought then that Asian Muslim Azerbaijanis were oppressing Christian Armenians, a small and humble nation -- because the Armenian diaspora was working hard for this to happen."
Melyanas said that the information presented to Lithuanians by the Armenians and Russians had even encouraged the country’s politicians to pass erroneous decisions. "But afterwards, once the Lithuanian society became aware of what actually happened, its views began to change," he said, adding that, particularly in the past two years, the factual evidence submitted has allowed to sway public opinion in Lithuania.
The roundtable was hosted by the Azerbaijan Strategic Research Center on the occasion of the Khojaly massacre anniversary.
On February 25-26, 1992, Armenian armed forces attacked unarmed civilians in Khojaly with the support of the Russian troops. 613 people were brutally killed, while 1,275 taken captives, 487 became handicapped and 150 remain missing. Overall, the war claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about a million Azerbaijanis. Armenia has been occupying over 20% of Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized territory since then. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.*