The claims made against Azerbaijan in the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia regarding the events of Sumgayit are completely groundless and are a distortion and falsification of historical facts.
Publika.az reports that these views were reflected in the statement of the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Aykhan Hajizade, regarding the statement of the Armenian MFA regarding the Sumgait events.
He emphasized that this statement covers the acts of violence, the mass expulsion of the Azerbaijani population living in the territory of Armenia, terrorism against the people of Azerbaijan, provocations on ethnic grounds and the use of military force in order to implement the groundless and illegal territorial claims of Armenia against Azerbaijan, starting from the late 1980s. – is an attempt to suppress:
“We remind the Armenian MFA that the riot committed on ethnic grounds in Sumgait was part of premeditated and planned purposeful provocations by the leadership of the USSR and Armenia, Armenian chauvinist ideologues and extremist organizations.
It should also be noted that it is known to everyone that a criminal case was opened by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the USSR regarding the incident, as a result of which the perpetrators and accomplices of the riots, as well as the total number of 32 victims, were identified. The presence of 6 Azerbaijanis among the victims of the incident proves that these riots were not carried out by the Azerbaijani population.
We bring to the attention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia that the cause of the events, the person who led the march, personally killed 6 people and raped 3 women of Armenian nationality, was Eduard Grigoryan, an Armenian by nationality, and numerous witness statements of Armenians living in Sumgait were collected about him. E. Grigoryan, who was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment by the court’s decision, was transferred to Armenia to serve his sentence and was later released.
According to the results of the court proceedings related to the Sumgait events of February 27-29, 1988, 92 people were sentenced to prison, and one person was sentenced to death.
For comparison, we would also like to note that in the late 1980s, during the forced expulsion of nearly 300,000 people from the regions where Azerbaijanis lived densely throughout history, in the late 1980s, no action was taken against those responsible for the death of more than 200 Azerbaijanis.
In addition, it is known to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia that none of the perpetrators of the numerous war and crimes against humanity committed by Armenia in many cities and villages, including Khojaly, during the military aggression against the territories of Azerbaijan, have been brought to legal responsibility.
We remind the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia that the Republic of Azerbaijan put an end to the decades-long military occupation of Armenia in a part of its internationally recognized sovereign territory and ensured its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
It would be more useful for the Armenian side to take a look at the criminal acts committed against Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijani heritage not only in the current territory of Armenia, but also in the period of occupation, instead of making allegations that the policy of “ethnic cleansing” is being carried out against Armenians and historical and religious monuments are being targeted.
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