The Azerbaijani leadership, then and now, never expressed remorse over the ethnic cleansing and massacres of the Armenians of Azerbaijan or the Armenians of Karabagh.

A comparatively small minority are Armenians from Armenia, including earthquake victims.

Encouraged by this indifference, Armenians successfully committed historical crime and genocide against Azerbaijanis.

Armenians had been keeping Khodjaly under complete siege during the previous four months.

Consequently, Armenia became a mono ethnic country, which was a long cherished dream of the Armenians.

4. Calls also upon the Soviet authorities to ensure the safety of the 500,000 Armenians currently living in Soviet Azerbaijan and to ensure that those found guilty of having incited or taken part in the pogroms against the Armenians are punished according to Soviet law.

In the first years of the conflict, the tragedy and terrorism committed by Armenians against the Azerbaijani population of Karabakh in the villages of Kerkijahan, Mesheli, Koushjular, Karadaghly and Aghdaban, and finally the Khodjaly genocide, are the historical stigma of the suffering and miserable Armenians.

Apart from these displaced persons, the FFM has found three categories of Armenians from Armenia in the territories.

Armenians, as a people who experienced the first genocide of the twentieth century, know full well the horror of genocide.

For example, the schools in Kelbajar and Chaikend had been financed by wealthy Armenians living in Iran and Russia respectively.

The reaction by radicals and militarists in Armenia, however, had forced the Armenian President to resign and the new President had withdrawn the agreement, demonstrating that Armenia's territorial ambitions took precedence over the grievances of displaced Armenians and the disastrous situation of Armenians in the Nagorny Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

Armenians, with the assistance of their foreign accomplices, destroyed and burned the town with the heavy military equipment of Regiment 366.

Unfortunately, the former Soviet leadership and civilized world remained indifferent to this conflict, the barbarity of the Armenians and the terrible plight of the Azerbaijanis.

Asking Was it genocide? does little to illuminate what was done to which Armenians by which Ottomans during World War I. Today, Turks willing to discuss or even apologize for the massacres refuse to confess to the supreme crime, but Armenians can accept no other label. Any group whose suffering is not called genocide feels like a second class victim.

Armenians committed a very grave historical crime the Khodjaly genocide against the Azerbaijanis at the end of the twentieth century, before the eyes of civilized humankind.

But humanity should be aware that the perpetrators of this crime, committed against not only Azerbaijanis but all of mankind, are the suffering and miserable Armenians.

The FFM investigated a two story school in the middle of town which was built two years ago with money from donors (relatives and charitable Armenians in Russia).

The next largest category is made up of Armenians who came to the territories for economic reasons, whether to build a better life or escape debts at home.

The history of the Armenians has been artificially changed, exaggerated and presented as an ancient one an intensive campaign of moral aggression has been conducted against the Azerbaijanis.

The pogroms of Armenians in Sumgait 17 years ago have the dubious honour of being the first time that ethnic cleansing was utilized in what was still a Soviet space.

From 1988 to 1990, the deliberate manipulation of the Azerbaijani public led to the massacres of Armenians in three of the largest cities of Azerbaijan, Sumgait, Kirovabad (Ganja) and Baku.

In particular, the Committee recommends to the State party that it conduct studies with a view to effectively assessing and evaluating occurrences of racial discrimination, in particular against ethnic Armenians.

Other nationalities, including Russians, Armenians, Greeks and Estonians, had also been forced to flee their homes, as they escaped the torture and brutality systematically carried out by the Abkhaz authorities.

In fact, the Azeri leadership encouraged the ethnic cleansing and massacres of the Armenians of Azerbaijan, directly and indirectly, through creation of a conducive environment for violence and impunity for such crimes.

Recently, as a result of the monitoring conducted by the OSCE fact finding mission in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, it was found that more than 15,000 Armenians had been illegally settled in these territories.

C. whereas the deteriorating political situation, which has led to anti Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and serious acts of violence in Baku, is in itself a threat to the safety of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan,

YEREVAN Will Turkey s current turmoil between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the country s powerful army complicate and delay the country s boldest initiatives in years the moves to address decades old tensions with both Armenians and Kurds?

Armenians and Azerbaijanis have not clashed militarily for more than a decade and a half. But this is only because there has been the perception of a military balance and a hope that ongoing negotiations would succeed.

Armenians, who had themselves experienced the horrors of genocide at the beginning of the twentieth century, welcomed the appointment of a Special Adviser to the Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide, for whom she expressed full support.

According to the United Nations Economic and Social Council Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights The Committee is concerned about the illegal occupation by refugees and internally displaced persons of properties belonging to Armenians and other ethnic minorities.

That process now hinges on protocols for establishing diplomatic relations that have been signed by both governments but unratified by either parliament. Completing the process depends directly and indirectly on how Armenians and Azerbaijan work to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

In the Caucasus, Azerbeijanis, Armenians, Georgians, Abkhazians, and Chechens all demanded states on the basis of self determination. In Yugoslavia, the Slovenes, Serbs, and Croats managed to carve out independent republics in the early 1990 s, but the Muslims in Bosnia Herzegovina were less successful.

Economic fears are not the only concern for EU citizens. Turkey was the theater of exceptional violence in the twentieth century its participation in WWI fueled hatred and gigantic massacres, with the genocide of the Armenians the last vicious spasm of the Ottoman Empire s brutal demise.

Ordinary Armenians were thus deprived of their leaders, and soon after were massacred, with many burned alive. Approximately 500,000 were killed in the last seven months of 1915, with the majority of the survivors deported to desert areas in Syria, where they died from either starvation or disease.

On December 16, Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey s most famous writers, will enter an Istanbul court to face a charge of insulting the national identity after he advocated open discussion of the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 and 1916. Pamuk faces three years in prison.

having regard to the historic status of the autonomous region of Nagorno Karabakh (80 of whose present population is Armenian) as part of Armenia, to the arbitrary inclusion of this area within Azerbaijan in 1923 and to the massacre of Armenians in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait in February 1988,

Turkey, a NATO member, is thus a party to this conflict now, and any military flare up between Armenians and Azerbaijanis might draw it in possibly triggering Russia s involvement, either through its bilateral commitments to Armenia, or through the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which Armenia and Russia are members.

As despicable as it may sound, the reason behind this unseen savagery is revealed by Defence minister of Armenia Serge Sarkissian in his interview to British journalist Tomas de Waal Before Khojaly the Azerbaijanis thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hands against the civilian population.

Should Russia recognize Abkhazia s independence, Saakashvili might be tempted to respond militarily to prevent his country from unraveling. Renewed conflict in Abkhazia would not only bring the risk of open warfare with Russia, but strain relations with Armenia, as there are near to 50,000 Armenians in Abkhazia who support the breakaway government.

The diplomatic protocols awaiting ratification by the two countries parliaments have fallen victim to miscalculations on both sides. The Armenians came to believe that Turkey would find a way to reconcile Azerbaijan s interests with the Turkish opening to Armenia, and would open the border with Armenia regardless of progress on resolving the Nagorno Karabakh issue.

While the population of Nagorno Karabagh, after 70 years of unlawful subjugation to Azerbaijani rule, raised its voice in peaceful demonstrations for the legally and universally recognized right to self determination, thus choosing the democratic, constitutional and peaceful path to the exercise of its right, the response of the Azerbaijani authorities was pogroms and killings of Armenians.

This year also marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide, about which successive Turkish governments have maintained an indefensible denial. But at least the fate of the more than one million Turkish Armenians killed outright or death marched into the Syrian desert in 1915 for their wartime disloyalty remains the subject of immense international scrutiny, research, and advocacy.

Most supplies headed for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan move through the Incirlik airbase in Turkey. With the threat that the US House of Representatives will approve a resolution that accuses Turks of genocide against ethic Armenians nine decades ago, this is a particularly inopportune moment for the two countries to be at odds over Iraq.

After the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia and Azerbaijan, a big portion of the Azerbaijani territories was annexed to Armenia with the help of the Bolshevik regime. Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis remaining in the territory of Armenia were granted no autonomy, whereas the Armenians in Azerbaijan enjoyed autonomy within the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region.

But Turkey s EU aspirations mean that it is now being forced to demilitarize its democracy and to find negotiated and peaceful agreements with all its neighbors and future partners Armenians, Kurds, and Cypriots. Thus, if Europe manages to overcome its fears and hesitations and open itself to a powerful Muslim state, it will consolidate peace in one of the world s most dangerous regions.