Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev has said Armenia, which attempts to present itself as a civilized country, proved the contrary by committing in the late 20th century such a terrible crime as the Khojaly genocide -- referring to the massacre of Azerbaijanis perpetrated during the 1990s war.

"The people who massacred innocent civilians cannot be called civilized. As a result of its near-sighted and destructive policy, the Armenian government nullified its own attempts to create an image of a long-suffering Armenian nation," Abdullayev said at a briefing on Friday.

The town of Khojaly was situated within the administrative borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Late into the night of February 25, 1992, Khojaly came under intensive fire. Armenian forces, supported by the ex-Soviet 366th regiment, completed the surrounding of the town. The joint forces invaded the town, which was ruined by heavy artillery shelling.

Thousands of fleeing civilians were ambushed by the Armenian forces. Punitive teams of the so-called Nagorno Karabakh defense army reached the unprotected civilians to slaughter them, mutilating and scalping some of the bodies. 613 people were killed, including 106 women, 70 elderly and 83 children. Moreover, a total of 1,000 civilians were disabled and 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.

According to Abdullayev, the Armenian government's attempts show that the country's authorities have chosen the strategy of deception of their people, which ultimately leads to delay in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"The desire to lay the blame on somebody else is typical for Armenia's leadership, while the distortion of the essence of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement demonstrates the bias of the country's authorities," Abdullayev said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenian territorial claims and boiled into a brutal war in the early 1990s. Since the war, which ended with the signing of a fragile cease-fire in 1994, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions on their pullout.