Former Foreign Minister of Nagorno Karabakh Republic, Arman Melikyan has a comment on the total number of Armenian refugees presented in the statement, which notes about 400.000 people. Let us remind that the statement on the 30th anniversary of the Sumgait tragedy adopted by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations.
“The point is that this number refers to refugees who have been expeled to Armenia and Artsakh, respectively, if I am not mistaken, 362.000 and about 27.000 people. Whereas tens of thousands of Armenians fled from Azerbaijan during 1988-1990, who without coming to Armenia or Artsakh, settled in the southern regions of Russia and other places. Therefore, I think it would be no exaggeration to speak of more than 500,000 of our compatriots expelled from Azerbaijan. This should not be based on the official statistics of that time, as it is known that Azerbaijan has always artificially reduced the real number of indigenous peoples, including Armenians living there. There were also many cases when people would register as Russians in order to avoid discrimination and persecution against Armenians”, told Arman Melikyan to Aravot.am.
According to our interlocutor, since the draft statement and the justification for its adoption are presented to the National Assembly by the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, on the initiative of which also parliamentary hearings on this issue were organized the previous day, perhaps the fact, that the statement presented for the National Assembly approval is addressed to the external audience, foreign countries, various international organizations and structures called to “condemn the crimes committed by Azerbaijan which threaten the security and welfare not only of the Armenian people, but also of the entire region”, is conditioned by the field of activity of the profile committee. “Apparently, the group working on this project has done serious and thorough work. Perhaps it would not be superfluous also to present a list of violations of the norms set by international law, by Azerbaijan, and to list international documents containing those norms”, said our interlocutor.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
