Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 25 /Trend/
The Bolshoi Petrovsky hall of Hotel complex President-Hotel in Moscow hosted a conference dedicated to the Khojaly tragedy.
The commemorative event was organized by the representation office of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in Russia, the Azerbaijani Youth Organization in Russia, the OIC Youth Forum and the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Russia.
The conference ended in signing of an international petition of the campaign to be addressed to the U.S. Congress, UN, PACE and European Parliament to recognize the Khojaly massacre as "a crime against humanity and make the culprits criminally responsible, according to an official statement of the Eurasian regional center of the OIC Youth Forum.
The conference participants attended the photo exhibition organized in the foyer of the Hotel to inform activities carried out as part of the campaign in various countries worldwide in 2009.
The conference was attended by more than 500 guests, including representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, academic and creative circles, Azerbaijani diaspora, media outlets, as well as students of Moscow universities.
Secretary General of the OIC Youth Forum Elshad Iskandarov made key remarks to the event. He presented to the event participants the trailer of a documentary film 'Path to Khojaly', taken in cooperation of British and Dutch filming groups.
Leyla Aliyeva, the Vice President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, General Coordinator of the OIC Youth Foundation on Intercultural Dialogue, the Chairperson of Azerbaijani Youth Organization in Russia (AYOR), the initiator of the campaign 'Justice for Khojaly', delivered an official report to the event. She spoke about the activities carried out as part of the campaign, the results achieved in 2010, and future plans and strategies.
Aliyeva stressed the importance of a resolution adopted at the session of the OIC Parliamentary Assembly, which was held last January in Abu Dhabi, on recognizing Khojaly massacre as a crime against humanity. "We also intend to present to the attention of legislatures of other countries true and reliable information about the Khojaly massacre for political and moral evaluation of the massacre by the international community in the near future," Aliyeva said.
In his speech, the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglu spoke about the activities of the country's leadership in the way of a fair settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and Baku's decisive position to preserve the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
A book titled 'Confessions of Armenian intellectuals' by Robert Arakelov was presented during the event. Based on specific facts, the book tells about the destructive activities of Armenian diasporas, which for centuries cherished a dream of 'Great Armenia' and played an inciting role in breaking out the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. A Yekaterinburg State University professor, historian Alexander Nesterov appraised the objective reasoning of the author of the book about the conflict, and mentioned baselessness of Armenian claims to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijani MP Elmira Akhundova and Deputy Dean of the History Faculty of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, Alexei Vlasov, also addressed to the conference.
At the end of the event, the participants watched a clip rap-manifesto 'Justice for Khojaly', prepared as part of the campaign and launched this week to go on a number of telecasts broadcasted in the CIS countries, Eastern Europe and Turkey.
The international information campaign 'Justice for Khojaly' (www.justiceforkhojaly.org) was initiated by Leyla Aliyeva on the day of occupation of Shusha, May 8, 2008. Currently, the campaign is aimed at presenting the truth about the Khojaly tragedy and achieving a political-legal and moral assessment on the tragedy from the world community. The campaign is successfully implemented by hundreds of volunteers in over 30 countries worldwide.