Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15
By Seba Aghayeva - Trend:
Azerbaijan will express protest to Russia in connection with an anti-Azerbaijani program.
"Azerbaijan will express its dissatisfaction to Russia and the management of the Channel 5 with regard to the airing of an anti-Azerbaijani program, which distorted the essence of the January 20 tragedy and the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's press secretary, Hikmet Hajiyev, told Trend Jan. 15.
He said the program, which is far from impartiality and aimed at encouraging the Armenian lies, deliberately said nothing about the massacre committed against Azerbaijanis in the country's occupied territories and in Armenia, and that more than one million Azerbaijanis became refugees and IDPs.
"Although the program showed a story about the Khojaly tragedy, its author and the channel's management had no courage to say that it was committed by Armenians against the civilians of the Azerbaijani city," he said.
The ministry's press secretary stressed that the January 20 tragedy is a crime committed by the Soviet regime against the Azerbaijani people, to save the Soviet Union, which was on the verge of collapse.
Hajiyev said the program's author illegally, having no consent of the Azerbaijani side, visited Azerbaijan's occupied territories, violating the law on state border.
"The channel's editorial staff and the journalist, while preparing this biased program should have known about the moral responsibility for the disrespect for the feelings of over one million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs, for the promotion of aggression and occupation, ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijani people," he said.
Hajiyev further noted that Azerbaijan's diplomatic missions in Russia will express the Azerbaijani side's indignation to the management if the Channel 5 and the relevant bodies of Russia.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
Edited by SI
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