Azerbaijan, Baku, August 20 / Trend T. Konyayeva /
The information blockade towards Azerbaijan will not be broken soon, the famous Russian writer and publicist, academic of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and author of the famous book 'The Bloody Karabakh Whirlpool, Professor Yuri Pompeyev, said.
"I have not been to Azerbaijan for 15 years. All I see now is evidence of the confidence that Azerbaijan has become a state. I see now in Azerbaijan a revival of the Azerbaijani people's self-consciousness," Pompeyev said at a meeting in the Institute of Human Rights of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences on August 20.
The meeting with the writer was held in the form of formal meetings with various interesting people present.
In Azerbaijan Pompeyev's name is famous both in the scientific sphere and for people who survived the beginning of the Karabakh War.
It is necessary to widen the collection of memories from people who survived these tragic events, and record their voices on paper, the writer said. "From personal experience, I am sure that living testimony is of great significant," he said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan lost all of Nagorno-Karabakh except for Shusha and Khojali in December 1991. In 1992-93, Armenian armed forces occupied Shusha, Khojali and 7 districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Pompeyev is in Baku by invitation of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.