Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 22 / Trend, I. Izzet /
All who took part in the Khojaly genocide - Kocharyan, Sargsyan and Gorbachev, must be brought before an international court and tribunal, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the State Committee for Refugees and IDPs Ali Hasanov said at an event on the Khojaly genocide at the Turkish embassy today.
He said that the Khojaly tragedy is the most terrible genocide committed in history.
"All of those who committed the genocide of Jews during World War II have been punished," he said. "But, unfortunately, those who have committed the Khojaly genocide have not been punished."
He added that not all materials on this bloody event have been collected.
"But this work is underway," he added. "We hope that Azerbaijan will employ international norms. I regret that no international human rights organization has expressed its opinion on this issue. The reason is that we are Azerbaijanis, we are Turks."
He stressed that Azerbaijan is doing everything to bring this issue to the attention of the world community and the concrete results of this work are obvious.
This is a problem not only of Azerbaijan, but entire Turkic world, Hasanov said.
On Feb. 25-26 February, 1992, Armenian occupation forces together with the 366th infantry Soviet regiment stationed in Khankendi (previously called Stepanakert) committed an act of genocide towards the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly.
Some 613 people were killed including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old men. A total of 1,000 civilians were disabled during the genocide. Eight families were killed, 130 children lost one parent and 25 lost both. Additionally, 1275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.
At present, the parliaments of six nations have decided to recognize the Khojaly genocide.
The required 100,000 people signed the petition on recognition of Khojaly tragedy posted on White House's official website.