France-Artsakh Friendship Circle congratulates Artsakh on its Revival Day
On February 20 thirty years ago, the Soviet of People's Deputies made a historic decision, based on the will of the people of Artsakh, which opened a new page in the history of Artsakh and became an important stage in the Liberation Movement, reads the statement France-Artsakh Friendship Circle issued on Thursday.
The Artsakh Movement was an unprecedented, truly democratic and peaceful movement for the civic and national rights, economic equality, and cultural identity.
The Friendship Circle recalls that on February 13, 1988, tens of thousands of people in Stepanakert spontaneously united, chanting "Freedom", "Glasnost and Perestroika", and "Reunification with Armenia". The Artsakh Movement for the inalienable right of the people of Artsakh to life, to freedom, and the right to determine its own destiny inspired millions of people in the post-Soviet area in their struggle for freedom.
The Friendship Circle also reminds that the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, to which Nagorno Karabakh had been arbitrarily annexed, responded to the democratic, peaceful and legal demonstrations by the massacres against the Armenian population committed in different cities of Azerbaijan (Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku) with a medieval cruelty.
The Friendship Circle notes that since then, the racial hatred against Armenians has become the state policy pursued by the Azerbaijani authorities at the highest level, thus denying the very right of Artsakh people to existence.
The Friendship Circle pays tribute to all those who at their own sacrifice created possibilities for the Republic of Artsakh to become independent and to build a democratic statehood. It reaffirms the necessity and irreversibility of soonest recognition of the full independence of Artsakh by the international community. The Friendship Circle believes that the reality demands the return of the Republic of Artsakh to the negotiation table, which is crucial for the achievement of a final settlement of the conflict and establishment of peace in the South Caucasus.
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