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Sargis Ghazaryan, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Armenia to Italy, responded to an article titled “Khojaly massacre” by Italian journalist Domenico Letizia and Azerbaijani Ambassador’s statements cited in it. The open letter is published on the website of the newspaper L'Opinione.

The Armenian Ambassador writes, “We cannot speak about Khojaly without remembering about the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh and the 35 thousand Armenians and Azerbaijanis, who fell victim to it amid the silence of the international community.”

The Armenian diplomat finds it absurd that a journalist living in Italy, a country guaranteeing freedom of press, speaks as a mouthpiece of Azerbaijan, a country where over 100 journalists and intellectuals are jailed. Moreover, names of foreign citizens, including 38 Italians and many journalists, are included in the “black list” of the personae-non grata of the Foreign Ministry of the country.

“The history is not a blanket to throw it from one side to the other depending on the necessity of changing the regime,” Ghazaryan stresses and recommends his Azerbaijani colleague to try to study the reasons and the chronology of Karabakh conflict from the sources that do not contain official propaganda.

“I understand that my colleague must carry out responsibilities before his country’s illiberal and despotic government, which does not tolerate any dissent, let alone a vertical diplomacy. Still I consider his arguments rude and incomplete,” the Armenian Ambassador writes.

He next notes that the town of Khojaly was a firing point for Grads, rocket launchers of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan, and they targeted the Armenian civilians. 

A few days before 25 February 1992, the command of the Self-Defence forces of Nagorno Karabakh informed Azerbaijan’s government and civilians about the unavoidability of a military operation to neutralise the firing point, as well as about a humanitarian corridor left for the evacuation of the civilians.
Citing Azerbaijani sources, the Armenian Ambassador writes that Salman Abbasov from Khojaly confirms the fact that a warning was spread on the radio and that the local authorities prohibited an evacuation of the population. “When it was at last possible to evacuate women, children and old people, they, the Azerbaijanis, forbade us to do that,” Abbasov said.

It is also known from Azerbaijani sources that Elman Mammadov, then mayor of Khojaly, was aware of the attacks and had asked for helicopters, yet the Baku authorities did not provide him with any help.
Azerbaijani MP Ramiz Fataliyev, the chairman of the committee for investigating the events, also gave noteworthy accounts. He said a decision was made not to evacuate the civilians from Khojaly during Azerbaijan’s National Security Council, which took place four days before the Khojaly events at the presence of the president, prime minister, KGB head and others. 

“These accounts imply that the civilians served as a human shield for the authorities of Azerbaijan to defend the firing point,” the Ambassador highlights.

He next cites an excerpt from Azerbaijan’s former president Ayaz Mutalibov’s interview who actually confirms that the opposition of the country had organised the events to overthrow him. “…the general background of arguments is that a corridor by which the people could leave, was, nevertheless, left by Armenians. Why then would they begin to shoot? Especially in the territory nearby Aghdam, where by that time there had been enough forces to help the people. Or, just come to an agreement that the civil population will leave. Such practice has always been usual,” the former president said.

In an interview to the Novoye Vremya newspaper on 6 March 2001, Mutalibov said, “It may be supposed that someone was interested to show those shots at the Supreme Council meeting later and turn the focus on me.” With this statement, the former president hinted at the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, whose groups were located not far from Khojaly.

“In this regard, we remind the author of the article that the journalists and rights defenders questioning the Azerbaijani authorities’ version about Khojaly were either arrested or killed,” the Armenian diplomat notes and mentions certain names – Chingiz Mustafayev, Eynulla Fatullayev, Elmar Huseynov.

The Ambassador also highlights the obvious manipulation of facts in the use of an excerpt from Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s interview to the British journalist and researcher Thomas de Vaal. The current President of Armenia headed the Committee of the Self-Defence Forces of the NKR during Khojaly events.

Sargsyan’ words in the 15 December 2000 interview really have totally another meaning, “The Azerbaijanis needed an occasion to equate something to Sumgait. But they cannot be compared in any way. Yes, actually, there were civilians in Khojaly. But besides civilians, there were also soldiers. And a falling shell cannot distinguish between a civilian and a soldier, it has no eyes. If civilians stay there, although they had an excellent opportunity to leave, it means they also take part in the military operations… And the corridor was left for them not for shooting them somewhere – it was possible to shoot them in Khojaly, not on the approaches to Aghdam.”

Azerbaijan refuses to engage the NKR leadership in direct negotiations, and unlike Armenia and the NKR, it turns down the offers to withhold the snipers from the line of contact and to implement mechanisms for investigation of the facts of ceasefire regime violations. Unlike the Azerbaijani government, Armenia seeks a peaceful settlement of the conflict without use of force. This approach is also shared by the international community, the Ambassador points out.

According to Ghazaryan, the position of the government of Armenia coincides with the approach of the international community reflected in the basic principles of the settlement of the conflict and in the joint statements made by the OSCE Minsk Group in L'Aquila, Muskoka, Deauville, as well as during the G8 summit in Enniskillen and G20 in Los Cabos.

To sum up, the Armenian Ambassador writes that instead of blaming the mediators in ineffective work, Azerbaijan’s government had better do everything possible – after so many clashes and civilian victims – to demonstrate a commitment to the peace process mediated by the OSCE and supported by the international community.