Ararat Mirzoyan Issues Statement

The Speaker of the National Assembly, Ararat Mirzoyan, has issued a statement, which in particular states:

“In January 1990, the Armenian population in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, was subjected to systematic and mass extermination. The massacres in Kirovabad, Sumgait, and Baku became part of the Azerbaijani state's policy of anti-Armenianism and ethnic cleansing. This anti-Armenian policy continued during the Second Artsakh War, which was accompanied by many horrific crimes committed against the peaceful population of Artsakh.

Despite this extremely complex situation and the blows sustained, the entire Armenian nation is determined to continue living and creating in its homeland and to thwart all threats against the Armenian people that aim to subject them to genocide. In our homeland, there can be no alternative other than to recognize our right to exist.

More precisely than Saroyan has expressed, I believe it is impossible to say: ‘I would like to see any force in the world that could destroy this people, this small nation of inconsequential people, whose history is finished, the wars fought and lost, the buildings collapsed, the literature unread, the music unheard, and the prayers silenced. Well, go to work, destroy this nation. Imagine it is 1915 again, and there is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Take them from their homes, send them to the deserts. Leave them without bread and water. Burn their homes and churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if their nation will not rise when two people meet in a café twenty years later, laughing and speaking their language. Well, let’s see if you can do something about it. Let’s see if you can prevent them from mocking the great ideas of the world, the boys who can speak in the world. Well, try to destroy them.”