Trend News, E. Rustamov
California State Assembly member Felipe Fuentes offered his condolences to the Azerbaijani people on the occasion of the 17th anniversary of the Khojali Genocide.
Armenian troops committed genocide in the Khojali settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh on Feb. 26, 1992. Within hours after the troops entered Khojali, over 600 unarmed Azerbaijani citizens were killed. Among them were 106 women and 83 children. About 1,000 people were disabled by shots; 8 families were fully destroyed. A total of 25 children lost both of their parents and 130 children lost one of them. About 1,275 people were taken prisoner. Around 150 people went missing.
Fuentes sent a letter to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev offering his condolences on the tragic events, Azerbaijani Consul in Los Angeles Elin Suleymanov told Trend News in a telephone conversation on Feb. 24.
"This is a very important event. Because there are many pro-Armenian officials in California. People around the world are gradually coming to understand that Armenians provide false information about the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict," Suleymanov said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. – are currently holding the peace negotiations.
A grave crime was committed against innocent Azerbaijani civilians by the Armenian army, on February 26, 1992, which became and remains the largest massacre of modern times in the region of South Caucasus and Caspian Basin. On that day, the military units of Armenia, seized the town of Khojaly, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, and committed a massacre, which was the culmination of the Armenian aggression and occupation of Azerbaijan. On that day, the Armenian government's efforts to rid Nagorno-Karabakh of its ethnically Azerbaijani population, resulted in almost 2,000 of innocent civilians, mostly women, children, and elderly, being killed, wounded, or taken hostage by the Armenian military forces.
The crime against peaceful residents of Khojaly was condemned worldwide, including by the U.S. government, and broadly covered by national newspapers and magazines. Some of the American and Western journalists and groups who eye-witnessed or extensively covered the Khojaly massacre, were: Hugh Pope, Thomas Goltz, Tom DeWaal, and Human Rights Watch. Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN), a Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, had the following appeal: "This is not the ringing condemnation that the survivors of Khojaly deserve, but it is an important first step by an international community that has too long been silent on this issue. Congress should take the next step and I hope my colleagues will join me in standing with Azerbaijanis as they commemorate the tragedy of Khojaly. The world should know and remember."
February 26, 2009, is a Memorial Day for the people of Azerbaijan. All Azerbaijani people will forever remember where they were on February 26, 1992, like all Americans will forever remember where they were on the tragic morning of September 11, 2001. Having experienced terror firsthand, Azerbaijan has become a staunch ally of the United States in the War on Terror and a member of the Coalition, with Azerbaijani battle-ready peacekeepers serving side-by-side with Americans in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the wake of the 17th year anniversary of Khojali massacre, all Azerbaijani-Americans join in calling upon Congress to properly recognize and commemorate this tragedy (on the floor of the Congress, in the Congressional Record, and by attending a vigil), and to pressure the Armenian government to accept its responsibility for this massacre and withdraw its troops from the occupied regions of Azerbaijan.
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