Azerbaijani encyclopedia on Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Empire: 1.5 million dead, 600,000 refugees
Today representatives of Azerbaijan at different levels try to deny the fact of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, however, earlier, the fact of the Armenian Genocide was truthfully described in the encyclopedia published in Azerbaijan.
Thus, in Volume IV of the Azerbaijani Soviet Encyclopedia, published in 1980, was written in Azerbaijani: "During the First World War (1914-1918) the local governing bodies of the Ottoman Empire ordered to carry out a massacre (genocide) of the local Armenian population. In 1915-1916, more than 1.5 million Armenians were killed and more than 600 thousand Armenians were deported to the deserts of Mesopotamia. More than 300,000 Armenians sheltered in Russia. Another part of the exiled Armenians settled down in the Middle East, the U.S. and Europe."
Today these facts are differently described in Azerbaijan. For example, this year, on April 24, on the commemoration day of the Armenian Genocide, Ali Hasanov, the head of the department of social and political issues at the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, said that Baku "will support Turkey in its fight against Armenian lies concerning the "genocide."
It is notable that on April 24, Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide victims in the Ottoman Empire, Azerbaijan celebrates "the day of the Turkish soldier." This "tradition" introduced in 2005, by the party of the Popular Front of United Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Press Agency "Vesti.az" reports. At the same time, "a tribute to" Turkish soldiers in Azerbaijan is paid in September 15, marking the anniversary of occupation of Baku by Turkish troops in 1918, when thousands of Armenians were killed as soon as the city was occupied.