Azerbaijan Will Respond: Statement

The Permanent Commission on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh has issued a statement on the 29th anniversary of the mass killings of the Armenian population in Baku.

"From January 13-19, 1990, the Armenian population in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, was subjected to mass murder organized by state authorities. Hundreds of Armenians fell victim to ethnically motivated violence, and Armenian properties were subjected to looting and confiscation. Under the direct threat of physical extermination, a quarter of a million displaced Armenians from Baku became refugees and settled in various parts of the world.

To silence the voice of the Armenian people of Artsakh, who rose up to restore historical justice and assert their right to self-determination, the authorities in Baku, with the tacit approval of Gorbachev's administration, perpetrated a planned genocide against Armenians. Despite the documented facts by international human rights organizations, the Azerbaijani authorities continue to conceal their genocidal actions, distort the truth, and evade responsibility.

In honoring the memory of the innocent Armenians who fell victim to the Baku massacre and forced displacement, the Permanent Commission on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly:

• Condemns any manifestations of hatred, extremism, and terrorism;
• Affirms that the organized violence against Armenians in Baku, throughout Eastern Transcaucasia, as well as against the Armenians of Northern Artsakh and Nakhchivan fully corresponds to the legal definition of genocide as established by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948;
• Calls upon the international community, human rights organizations, and parliamentary bodies to provide a legal assessment of the mass killings of the Armenian population in Baku and take action against the ongoing state-sponsored anti-Armenian propaganda in Azerbaijan;
• Reaffirms that the massacres organized in Baku are not subject to historical obsolescence, and the Republic of Artsakh will be consistent in holding accountable those who orchestrated and executed the genocide against Armenians.