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Monday January 6 2025

Western Azerbaijan Community condemns racist speech by former Armenian president

4 January 2025 19:02 (UTC+04:00)
Western Azerbaijan Community condemns racist speech by former Armenian president

Recently, a video of a speech by former Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, delivered at the “Yerkrapa” volunteer union meeting on July 23-24, 1993, has been circulated. His words reveal deeply rooted racism, hatred towards Azerbaijanis, and a policy of aggression within Armenia's political circles, according to the Western Azerbaijan Community, Azernews reports.

The community, in its statement, included an excerpt from Ter-Petrosyan’s speech:

“Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh solved a problem that the Armenian people have not been able to solve for 600 years. Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh were completely cleansed of foreign nations. I repeat, this was a 600-year-old problem. The Armenian people will feel its importance for at least 600 years from now. Imagine that if today there were 180 thousand representatives of foreign nations in Armenia, as there were in 1988, we would not have a state today. We would not be able to protect Zangazur, our northeastern regions, or the banks of Sevan. Even several autonomies would have been created here. Do not forget that Azerbaijanis were in the majority in three regions - Vardenis, Masis, and Amasya. Their number in Zangazur was extremely high. Now this problem has been solved.”

The statement goes on to argue that Armenia's approach of “if there is no population, there is no problem” reflects a policy of ethnic cleansing aimed at eradicating the Azerbaijani population. The community asserts that this policy has persisted through various Armenian leaderships—from Ter-Petrosyan to later commanders Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, and now under the “democratic” government of Nikol Pashinyan. The goal of the 1987 conflict, the statement emphasizes, was to create a mono-ethnic Armenia through ethnic cleansing, resulting in the creation of a “greater Armenia” at the expense of Azerbaijani territories.

The statement also condemns the Armenian society and diaspora for continuing to support or ignore the racist speech even after more than 30 years.

“The fact that even after more than 30 years since the events, the Armenian society and the Armenian diaspora continue to support or try to cover up the above-mentioned speech of Levon Ter-Petrosyan deeply disappoints us Western Azerbaijanis. However, Armenia will not succeed in losing track of these systematic bloody crimes and denying them. We invite the international community to condemn this racist policy of Armenia, and to call on it to start a dialogue with the Western Azerbaijan Community. The Western Azerbaijani Community will continue its efforts to hold Armenia accountable within the framework of international law and to ensure the peaceful, safe, and dignified return of Western Azerbaijanis to their ancestral homeland,” the statement concludes.

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