Sumgait Tragedy was state-organized genocide: Ashot Melkonyan

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 26, ARMENPRESS.Many years have passed since Sumgait pogrom but the international community has not completely perceived the truth, therefore Armenian side’s fight, related to propaganda of the mentioned issue, needs to be continued, Directorof the History Institute of the Armenian NationalAcademy of Sciences Ashot Melkonyan expressed such opinion during the presentation of Bakur Karapetyan's"TheSumgait Diary" book, “Armenpress” reports.

“There are forces today, which believe Azerbaijani falsification on Khojaly events and forget the anti-Armenian policy and massacres against Armenians organized by Azerbaijani and their ancestors Caucasus Tatars not in the recent past,” Ashot Melkonyan said. According to the historian, it is regrettable that the world often forgets about massacres and destructions against Armenians in Baku, 1905, destructions and massacres against local Armenians in Shusha, 1920 and mass murder of 30.000 Armenians in Baku, 1918.

Ashot Melkonyan emphasized that Sumgait tragedy was a state-organized genocidal act. “Sumgait pogrom was a new genocide and it fully complies with the criteria set out in the UN Convention on Genocide, as the massacres against Armenians, regardless of the number of victims, was made on the basis of their nationality,” he said.

The historian, drawing parallels between 1988 Sumgait massacres and 1905 February’s Baku massacres of Armenians during the Armenian-Tatar conflict, said that in both cases there were the same provocations. As it happened in 1905, Azerbaijani authorities also pre-organized everything in the February of 1988, prepared the murderers and the latters killed Armenians under the instigation of Azerbaijani authorities.

Author of the book Bakur Karapetyan stressed in his speech that the tragedy was organized by the Kremlin. MikhailGorbachev was aware of organized massacres and deliberately took no steps to prevent it.