Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.28 / Trend /
Over the years, the Armenian side refers to the Sumgayit events in an attempt to justify its separatist and aggressive policy, the Khojaly genocide and other crimes committed on the Azerbaijani territory, head of department on work with law-enforcement agencies of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Fuad Alasgarov said.
He underscored that Armenia, which occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories and carried out ethnic cleansing policy, presents the Sumgayit events as a purposeful act committed by Azerbaijan.
Alasgarov said, if earlier this activity was limited to only propaganda, now work has been launched to transfer "genocide of Armenians in Sumgayit" to legal platform.
"The planned policy of Armenian diaspora, aimed at ensuring the recognition of the so-called "Armenian genocide of 1915" by foreign countries, assigning responsibility to Turkey and even criminalizing the denial of recognition of the "genocide", as it was in France for example, has begun to show itself in presenting Sumgayit events," he said.
"In recent years, Armenia often voices opinion that the Sumgayit events are "an act of genocide" committed by the Azerbaijanis against the Armenians, and appeals to various international organizations with such declarations, while the Armenian diaspora attempts to submit the issue for discussion at foreign countries' parliaments," Alasgarov noted.
He said the Azerbaijani government closely follows Armenia's disinformation activities and takes necessary steps to stop this activity. Presently, work aimed at giving a fair political and legal assessment to the Sumgayit events and exposing farfetched Armenian version of the incident, is underway, he said.
Alasgarov noted that bringing information to the international community not only about the Sumgayit events, but also about the Khojaly tragedy, and about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in general, its causes and serious consequences for our people is one of the important conditions in the fair resolution of this conflict.
"Azerbaijani President, highly distinguished Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly underlined that Azerbaijan is a supporter of the conflict resolution through negotiations based on norms of international law, within the territorial integrity of our country. However, the peace process will be effective only if actions and decisions of the process parties will be based on true information. In this regard, fictions and unfounded claims of the Armenian side only impede the peace process and cast serious doubt on its effectiveness," Alasgarov underscored.
"Unfortunately, investigation and judicial processes on the mass riots in Sumgayit held in 1988-1990, did not give a fair legal assessment to these events," Alasgarov said. "The real customers and organizers of unrest were not exposed and were not brought to justice. On the contrary, USSR Prosecutor's Office on the instructions of Mikhail Gorbachev decided on the version that these events have been committed with hooligan elements, and did everything possible to make this version official".
Alasgarov underlined that testimonies were also falsified to make semblance that the Sumgayit events were allegedly committed by the Azerbaijanis. Despite the fact that the majority of Azerbaijanis, who spoke at rallies and actually dissuaded participants from provocations, were involved in the investigation as "extremists." In addition, during the investigation Armenians residing in Sumgayit have repeatedly claimed that they were rescued by Azerbaijanis.
"I would like to stress that the investigation is continuing, active work is underway, which I am sure will lead to exposure of those responsible for the Sumgayit events," Alasgarov said.