Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The collection of signatures under a petition posted on the official website of the White House urging recognition of the Khojaly genocide committed by Armenian armed forces against Azerbaijani civilians during a war in the 1990s has been completed ahead of time.

Some 100,000 electronic signatures were required to be collected in accordance with the petition under the "We the people" campaign, for President Barack Obama to issue a statement on the tragedy in Khojaly. According to the U.S. Constitution, following the collection of the required number of signatures the White House has to make a statement that reflects the interests of the signatories.

The start of voting under the campaign was announced on January 25. The deadline for voting was February 25, 2013 -- the 21st anniversary of the Khojaly tragedy, which is one of the most heinous and bloodiest events of the 20th century.

Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict which emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against the neighboring country. The two South Caucasus countries fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a precarious cease-fire in 1994. Armenian armed forces have since occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. Peace talks brokered by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs the United States, Russia and France have been largely fruitless so far. Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its withdrawal from the occupied Azerbaijani lands.

During the brutal war, a massacre was committed in the town of Khojaly, which was situated within the administrative borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Its population constituted over 7,000 people. Because of its communication advantage of having a civilian airport, just before the start of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict it had become a shelter for refugee Meskhet Turks who fled the bloody inter-ethnic clashes in Central Asia as well as Azerbaijani refugees deported from Armenia.

Late into the night of February 25, 1992, the town came under intensive fire from the town of Khankendi and Askeran already occupied by Armenian forces. At night the Armenian armed forces supported by the ex-Soviet 366th regiment completed the surrounding of the town already isolated due to ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population of its neighboring regions. The joint forces occupied the town, which was ruined by heavy artillery shelling.

Under these conditions the towns' residents stepped into the darkness of the night to be met along the away by an ambush of Armenian forces. Several thousand fleeing civilians were ambushed in several locations and, faced with heaving shooting, they tried to find refuge in the nearby forests and mountainous areas. However, punitive teams of the so-called NK defense army reached the unprotected civilians to slaughter them, mutilating and scalping some bodies.

In just a few hours, 613 civilians were killed, including 106 women, 70 elderly and 83 children. A total of 1,000 civilians were disabled. 56 people were killed with outrageous brutality, eight families were totally exterminated, and 25 children lost both parents, while 130 children lost at least one parent, in what became the most brutal punishment of civilians during the three years of the conflict's military phase. Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.

The Khojaly genocide was earlier recognized by the parliaments of Turkey, Pakistan and Mexico, as well as the legislative bodies of numerous U.S. states.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation recognized the Khojaly genocide as an act of genocide and crime against humanity according to the decision made at the 12th session of the OIC Islamic Summit Conference held in Cairo on February 2-7 and joined by OIC leaders.