Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation should join efforts for international recognition of the Khojaly genocide -- mass killings committed by Armenia during the Karabakh war in the early 1990s, OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said at an event in the Saudi city of Jeddah honoring the memory of the massacre victims.

Strongly condemning the atrocities committed by Armenian armed forces, Ihsanoglu said that in the resolutions adopted by the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers, the mass killings committed against civilians in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan were labeled a crime against humanity.

On February 25-26, 1992, Armenian armed forces jointly with the 366th infantry regiment of Soviet troops committed an act of genocide against the civilian population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly. 613 people were brutally killed, including 106 women, 70 elderly and 83 children, and a total of 1,000 were disabled. Eight families were totally exterminated, and 25 children lost both parents, while 130 children lost one parent. Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.

According to the OIC secretary-general, the organization is doing its utmost to achieve recognition of this genocide on worldwide scale.

Ihsanoglu also expressed OIC's lasting support for the just position of the Azerbaijani people, saying the organization's and his own support will be continued in the future.

He called on Armenia to immediately pull out of the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Since the brutal war that concluded with the signing of a fragile cease-fire in 1994, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, defying international law. Peace talks, brokered by Russia, France and the U.S., the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, have been mostly fruitless so far.

The OIC recognized the Khojaly events 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. The OIC leaders' condemnation was expressed in the clause on humanitarian issues of their final communique adopted at the OIC summit. In the document, the leaders of 57 OIC countries welcomed the "Justice for Khojaly" international campaign, initiated by Leyla Aliyeva, General Coordinator for Intercultural Dialogue of the Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation.

The mentioned clause calls on the member states to be closely involved in the campaign's activities and make an effort to achieve recognition of this genocide worldwide.

The event in Jeddah dedicated to the commemoration of the Khojaly victims was also attended by the President of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Ahmad Mohamed Ali, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Permanent Representative to OIC Rasim Rzayev and Turkish Consul in Jeddah Fikret Ozer.

Speaking at the event, Ambassador Rzayev talked about the brutal killings on innocent people in Khojaly, perpetrated as part of the genocide policy pursued by Armenian nationalists against the Azerbaijani people. He revealed the numbers of the people killed, missing and taken hostage during the massacre.

The IDB head also expressed deep regret regarding the Khojaly tragedy. Condemning this genocide, Ahmad Mohamed Ali expressed unyielding support for the Azerbaijani people and government.

Books published in Arabic and English about the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Khojaly genocide, the latest special edition of the "IRS" (Heritage) journal, as well as the books and CDs "Karabakh realities" and "Khojaly genocide (in documents, facts and foreign media)" prepared by Azerbaijan's Heydar Aliyev Foundation were presented to the participants of the event and maps of Azerbaijan and Karabakh were demonstrated. Also, a documentary about the Khojaly tragedy was shown.