Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijanis has been subjected to ethnic cleansing and forced deportation from their native homelands during the past 200 years, as a result of complicated political processes happened in the South Caucasus region, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Ali Hasanov said.

He made the remarks during a meeting with the popular journalist, Carmen Clara Rodríguez Alonso, the editor of the Spanish news agency, EFE.

Hasanov, who is also the chairman of the State Committee on Deals of Refugees and IDPs, briefed the journalist on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and its consequences.

Hasanov said because of the systematic policy of the Czarist Russia, which invaded the Caucasus beginning from early 19th century, Armenians were massively removed from territories of the neighboring countries to Azerbaijan, including to Nagorno-Karabakh.

He said Armenians realized their plans - groundless territorial claims against Azerbaijan - stage by stage. He stressed that during 1905-1907 and 1918-1920, thousands of Azerbaijanis were brutally and massively killed, their villages were destroyed and they became refugees and IDPs.

Hasanov said declaring its independence on 28 May, 1918, Azerbaijan faced again territorial claims of Armenian nationalists.

An idea of establishing Armenian state in the territory of Iravan khanate of Azerbaijan has emerged during those times.

As a result, a small Armenian state was set up in 1918 in Iravan khanate. In the course of systematic ethnic cleansings in the past and the migration of Armenians from Iran and Ottoman Empire, the capital of present day Armenia became the city with monoethnic population, Hasanov said.

Hasanov said this insidious policy was continued during the period of the Soviet regime, too. In 1923, Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was established in Azerbaijan`s territory. Later, during Stalin`s power, the deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia took place as an act of forced resettlement and ethnic cleansing throughout the 20th century.

He said the last wave of Azerbaijanis` deportation from Armenia - the last ethnic cleansing policy took place during 1988-1992 and this process was carried out very brutally and cruelly, as a result of which 250 Azerbaijanis were driven out from their home lands.

The Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts. Over one million people have become refugees and IDPs.

Armenia constantly violates the ceasefire agreement signed with Azerbaijan in 1994 and ignores the U.N. Security Council`s four resolutions on the liberation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions. Azerbaijan`s material and cultural riches have been plundered and all infrastructures have been destroyed.

Hasanov also gave information about the Khojaly genocide - one of the most horrible tragedies, which Azerbaijan experienced in the 20th century. He said it is like the genocides committed in Khatyn, Lidisia, Oradur reflected in the history of mankind.

In the early hours of February 26 in 1992, the armed forces of Armenia, with the help of the former Soviet Union's unit in Armenia occupied the town and committed genocide against Azerbaijanis.

On that night, when Armenians committed genocide in Khojaly, 613 peaceful residents were murdered with high cruelty, tortured, beheaded and blinded. Pregnant women were bayoneted; among them were 63 children, 106 women and 70 elderly people.

Hasanov said that the damage inflicted on Azerbaijan by the Armenian aggression is estimated at $300 billion. The figure excludes items of inestimable heritage, and it is impossible to determine the immense moral value of the ancient and irreplaceable cultural monuments of Azerbaijani nation that have been destroyed.

He went on to say that despite many international and regional organizations, including the UN Security Council, the Council of Europe, OIC and the European Parliament had adopted resolutions condemning Armenia`s aggression and invasion policy, demanding withdrawal from Azerbaijan`s occupied lands and returning of refugees and IDPs to their homes, all these resolutions remain unfulfilled.

Hasanov said peace talks over the settlement of the conflict brokered by mediation mission of the OSCE Minsk Group had produced no results so far.

He also highlighted 31 March as the day of genocide of Azerbaijanis. Hasanov said the massacre of Azerbaijanis and repressions committed against them should be considered as the bloodiest page of the world history of the 20th century.

On March 31, 1918, members of the Armenian Dashnak party in concert with Soviet Bolsheviks massacred about 20,000 innocent Azerbaijani people, including the elderly, women and children.

The genocide policy pursued against Azerbaijanis was not limited to Baku. The evidence of the Armenian vandalism in Guba is the burial of remains of the genocide victims. The burial was discovered during the construction of a stadium in Guba in 2007.

Hasanov also briefed on the Black January committed by Soviet troops in Baku late at night on January 19, 1990.

Though the final death toll is still contested to this day, at least 130 people died from wounds received that night and during subsequent violent confrontations. A vast majority of the casualties were civilians, with over 700 wounded.

Alonso thanked Hasanov for detailed information. She said the aim of his visit to Baku was to raise awareness of the Spanish people about tragedies that Azerbaijanis faced in different times.

Alonso said what she learned at the meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister would help her in this regard.

She praised the rapid development of Azerbaijan, saying Baku was a city where modernism and antiquity unite.