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Azerbaijanâ€™s Permanent Representative addresses UN Secretary-General

18 March 2011 08:59 (UTC +04:00)

Washington. Isabel Levine â€“ APA. In order to answer Armenian side in UN the Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to organization, Ambassador Agshin Mehdiyev addressed the Secretary-General this week, APAâ€™s Washington DC correspondent was informed by UN News Centre.

â€œIn accordance with instructions received from my Government, I have the honor to refer to the letter dated 28 February 2011 from the Permanent Representative of the Armenia - that letter makes a clumsy attempt to respond to my letter addressed to you in connection with the nineteenth anniversary of the massacre committed by the Armenian armed forces against the Azerbaijani civilian population and defenders of the town of Khojaly, situated in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijanâ€, the letter begins.

In reality, the Ambassador continues, the letter of Armenian side is yet another illustration of sophisticated and blatant falsification, by means of which the Armenian side obstinately denies irrefutable fact testifying to its responsibility for the crimes committed in Khojaly.

â€œWhile trying to accuse Azerbaijan of alleged â€œanti-Armenian propagandaâ€ and â€œhatred towards Armeniansâ€ and referring to ambiguous, politically motivated and groundless interpretations of the events in Khojaly, the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Armenia at the same time not only refrains from commenting on the views expressed by the European Court of Human Rights and authoritative international non-governmental organizations, but also neglects to clarify the revelations of his countryâ€™s high-ranking officials and the direct participants in the crime, who in turn unequivocally admit culpability for the extermination of the inhabitants and defenders of Khojalyâ€.

The Ambassador also reminds that, thus, Armeniaâ€™s then-Defense Minister and current President, Serzh Sargsyan, acknowledged, without any feeling of remorse, that â€œbefore Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that ... the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype]â€, (Thomas de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (New York and London, New York University Press, 2003), p. 172).

â€œIt should be particularly noted in this regard that the Khojaly events took place in a period when the current President of the Republic of Armenia served as head of the illegal separatist regimeâ€™s â€œSelf-Defence Forces Committeeâ€ and, accordingly, was one of those responsible for the forcible capture of the town. Armenian author Markar Melkonian, in his book dedicated to his brother and one of the perpetrators of the Khojaly massacre, gave a detailed account of how Armenian soldiers had killed the Khojaly town civiliansâ€.

â€œThe overall assessment of the causes and tragic consequences of the war unleashed by the Republic of Armenia against the Republic of Azerbaijan makes it absolutely clear that the intentional slaughter of the Khojaly town civilians and defenders was not an isolated or sporadic act, but was part of the official Yerevan widespread and systematic policy and practice of atrocities, at the core of which are odious ideas of racial superiority, ethnic differentiation and hatredâ€, the letter said.

Mr Mehdiyev then reminded that, Azerbaijan is confident that consistent measures taken at the national level as well as the existing legal framework of prosecution of, and punishment for, international crimes will secure conviction in the perspective of ending impunity for the crimes in Khojaly and other grave offences committed in the course of the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan.