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International campaign â€œJustice for Khojalyâ€ officially started in Turkey

26 February 2009 13:18 (UTC +04:00)

Istanbulâ€“APA. International campaign â€œJustice for Khojalyâ€ was officially started in Turkey with the conference entitled â€œJustice for Khojaly: prospects of humanitarian and legal recognitionâ€. The conference was organized by the Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation (ICYFDC) in the Forumâ€™s Headquarter in the Istanbul World Trade Center. Members of the parliament, government officials, municipalities, scientists and representatives of the leading media organizations attended the conference, which started with the screening of â€œThe Prayerâ€. ISYFDC Secretary General Elshad Iskanderov spoke about the necessity of this initiative and said the campaign started in more than 20 countries. He thanked the Turkish government and public community for their support for the campaign. The campaign national coordinator on Turkey young historian Emine Yetim presented the www.justiceforkhojaly.org website. ICYFDC President Ali Sarikaya and Youth and Sport Chief of the Istanbul Municipality Enis Erdem emphasized the importance of the campaign and said their organizations would comprehensively support it. The participants signed the Declaration to support the campaign.

Professor of Turkeyâ€™s Yeditepe University, Chairman of the Historic Research Center Mehmet Saray and professor of Gazi University Ilyas Dogan addressed the first plenary session of the conference. They spoke about the occupation of Azerbaijani lands and imminence if international recognition of Khojlay genocide. Speeches of young representatives of the Turkish universities were heard at the second plenary session. The students analyzed the Khojaly tragedy from the view of international law and spoke about the estimation of the event from the view of human rights. They supported non-opening of borders between Turkey and Armenia.
Hollywoodâ€™s first Turkish producer Mehmet Chelebi said the Turkish Diaspora in the United States was always keeping the Khojaly issue on agenda. He said Turkish Diaspora in Chicago sued Armenian National Committee of America for its active anti-Khojaly campaign. Korhan Yurtseverâ€™s film â€œLet it be the lastâ€ was shown at the end of the event.
â€œJustice for Khojalyâ€ campaign events took place on Thursday in Kiev, Washington, Berlin, Bucharest, Vienna, Riga and Warsaw. The www.justiceforkhojaly.org Internet-site was presented at the events.
The Justice for Khojaly campaign was declared on May 8, 2008 on the initiative of Ms. Leila Aliyeva, Senior Coordinator of the Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation.