BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 25
Trend:
The Sumgayit events were a provocation on the part of Armenian nationalists, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said while speaking at an event to mark the 70th anniversary of the city of Sumgayit.
“We must openly say that because Armenian nationalists have been trying to denigrate and tarnish the city of Sumgayit for many years,” Ilham Aliyev said. “All this is completely unfounded and absurd. I say with full responsibility that Sumgayit events were perpetrated by Armenian nationalists and Armenian units. We all know perfectly well that there was an Armenian named Grigoryan, who killed about 10 Armenians, and his gang. What happened after that? The investigation was conducted by a group from Moscow, so it was quite fair. All testimonies, witness testimonies and confrontations proved that it was Grigoryan who committed the murder of Armenian people. He was arrested and all the evidence was corroborated. After that, he was sent to Armenia to serve his sentence, where he was released.”
“The question arises: why does Armenia free the killer who committed the murder of about 10 Armenians? Because he carried out their instructions,” the Azerbaijani president noted. “On the wave of the Sumgayit events, the campaign of slander against Azerbaijan assumed even greater proportions and as a result, a conflict occurred in Nagorno-Karabakh. I have repeatedly said that if Heydar Aliyev had been in Azerbaijan at the time, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would never have occurred and our lands would never have been occupied.”