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Speaker of Turkish parliament: â€œArmenia must leave the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and apologize to the innocent and oppressed people it deprived of homelandâ€

13 December 2011 09:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Azerbaijani embassy in Turkey held a remembrance ceremony in Sheraton Hotel, Ankara on the occasion of the 8th anniversary of Heydar Aliyevâ€™s death. According to APA, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Turkey Faig Baguirov, Speaker of the Turkish Parliament Cemil Cicek, Turkeyâ€™s Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz, Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertogrul Gunay, members of the parliament, professors and scientists and business people attended the ceremony.

Speaker of the Turkish Parliament Cemil Cicek said they faithfully paid tribute to Heydar Aliyev on the 8th anniversary of his death. He said today the most important problem for Azerbaijan is the occupation of 20 percent of its territories by Armenia. One million Azerbaijanis were turned into refugees and internally displaced persons, Armenia committed crimes against humanity in the occupied territories: â€œRejoining of the occupied territories to Azerbaijan and return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their homelands is one of our main goalsâ€.

Cicek said Turkey would continue supporting of Azerbaijan to restore its territorial integrity. â€œEnsuring the rights of Azerbaijan in Nagorno Karabakh is a priority of the Turkeyâ€™s foreign policy. The Nagorno Karabakh conflict is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the Caucasus. We call all countries and international organizations to put an end to unjust occupation by Armenia. The main condition for the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations is the end of occupation of Azerbaijani lands. Armenia raised genocide claims and turned it into the political campaign and forced some parliaments to pass decision about it. It is surprising that the countries making such decisions accuse Turkey for the events happened 100 years ago. Nevertheless one of the biggest massacres of modern history was committed before eyes of the world in 1992 in Khojaly. Incumbent head of Armenia Sargsyan also took part in Khojaly massacres. Sargsyan described that event so: â€œBefore Khojaly Azerbaijanis thought that we (Armenians) are unable of killing civilians. In Khojaly we have broken this stereotypeâ€. If we have to determine our policy on the basis of past events, first Armenia must take step towards the elimination of these problems. Armenia must leave the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and apologize to the innocent and oppressed people it deprived of homelandâ€.