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Azerbaijani Diaspora in US sends letter of protest to PBS over scheduled broadcasting of â€œA story of people in war and peaceâ€

20 October 2010 13:53 (UTC +04:00)

Washington. Isabel Levine â€“ APA. The Azerbaijani Diaspora Organizations in US send a letter of protest to PBS over the scheduled broadcasting of â€œa story of people in war and peaceâ€, APAâ€™s Washington DC correspondent was told at Azerbaijani-American Council (AAC) and Azerbaijan Society of America (ASA).

â€œAs representatives of Azeri-American community and taxpayers, we are extremely disturbed to have learned that on October 24, 2010, the PBS is planning to air an Armenian-made documentary called "A Story of People in War and Peace". Authored by Vardan Hovhannisyan, this documentary about the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict around the Nagorno-Karabakh region would present a rather perverted interpretation of controversial history to the PBS viewerâ€, - the letter says.

The documentary misrepresents the bitter Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as that of a freedom fight of Armenians in Karabakh against Azerbaijan: â€œYet the documentary omits the facts that from 1991 to 1994, Armenian forces invaded and occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, ethnically cleansing over 800,000 Azeri civilians and leaving 30,000 dead. Since the ceasefire in 1994, Armenian forces occupy over 16% of internationally recognized (including by the United States) territory of Azerbaijan and hundreds of thousands of Azeris are unable to return to their homesâ€.

Since 1993, four UN Security Council resolutions (#822, 853, 874, 884) and several General Assembly resolutions condemned the Armenian occupation and called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, creating conditions for the return of refugees and a peaceful resolution of conflict. Yet driven by obsessive thoughts of ethnic superiority and intolerance, irredentist ideas of creating "Greater Armenia", historical revisionism and genocidal intentions against Azerbaijani heritage, Republic of Armenia and its "freedom fighters" in the occupied Karabakh are yet to listen to these international demands.

â€œAs PBS is a publicly funded service based on taxpayer contributions, we appeal for your common sense to cancel the broadcast of this documentary. We respect the freedom of information as a fundamental constitutional right, but airing of this documentary would be a severe disservice and an insult to intelligence of PBS viewer in favor of a limited interest group. This broadcast would serve as a disrespect to the memory of over 30,000 Azeris and Armenians who perished in this conflict and an added insult to hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani internally displaced people (IDPs) who are unable to return to their homes, many of them continuing to suffer in refugee campsâ€ â€“ stated US Azerbaijanis.