Azernews.Az

A panel of Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, has adopted a document on the Khojaly massacre of Azerbaijanis urging to recognize as genocide the bloody acts committed by Armenian armed forces against civilians in 1992.

The document was passed by the Petitions Committee on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Khojaly genocide, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The document called on Armenia, which itself alleges the perpetration of 1915 genocide against its people in Turkey, to treat with understanding the issue regarding the 1992 massacre of Azerbaijanis.

Lasting peace in the region can only be achieved on the basis of historical truth, the document says.

On February 25-26, 1992, Armenian armed forces invaded Khojaly, a town located in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno Karabakh region. During the attack, 613 people, including underage children and women, were brutally killed and hundreds of others disabled. 1,275 people were captured, including 150 whose fate is still unknown, and 5,379 people were ousted from their homes.

The paper also cites the significance of resolving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and calls for a withdrawal of Armenian forces from the Azerbaijani territories occupied since the 1990s war, first of all, from five regions surrounding Nagorno Karabakh.

The committee said the first step in resolving the conflict should be the application of international law and the return of IDPs to their native land.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following the war. US, Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group are working to broker a solution of the conflict, but their efforts have been largely fruitless so far.

This story is published by AzerNEWS Weekly under a project funded by the Foundation for State Assistance to the Development of the Media under the President of the Azerbaijan Republic.