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As Turkey and Azerbaijan continue their duplicitous public relations campaign to influence US policy to whitewash their abysmal human rights record and cover up the financing of terrorists during last year’s 44-day war against the Armenian people, the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly) urges activists across the country to remain vigilant.

As the Organisation said in a press statement, yesterday, Armenia’s Human Rights Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan released a video featuring large- and small-caliber Azerbaijani gunfire aimed at civilian-populated areas in Armenia’s southernmost province of Syunik. “All this affirms, yet another time, that Azerbaijani troops must not be deployed on the roadways connecting the communities of Syunik as that seriously endangers civilians’ rights,” Tatoyan wrote in a public Facebook post.

As violence initiated by Azerbaijan continues against the Armenians, in contravention to the terms of the November 9, 2020 cease-fire agreement, Turkey and Azerbaijan have intensified their efforts to conceal the bloodiest chapters of their histories by pushing the State of Minnesota to declare February 26 as Azerbaijani Day, a day that Armenians commemorate the Sumgait pogroms, orchestrated by the Azerbaijani authorities, which lasted from February 26, 1988 to March 1, 1988.

In Philadelphia, the MUSIAD USA organization [Turkish American Business Association] sponsored a billboard on I-95 North, which cynically states: “Azerbaijanis (and Turks) are ready to live in harmony with Armenians. ‘How about Armenians?’”

The statement belies reality and completely ignores the ongoing atrocities being committed against the Armenian people from the mistreatment of prisoners of war to the attacks reported yesterday by Armenia’s Ombudsman, as well as Turkey and Azerbaijan’s ongoing blockade of Armenia, in addition to the ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey from 1915-1923.

For decades now, both Turkey and Azerbaijan have spent millions of dollars to fabricate a mass campaign of lies that overlooks all of their atrocities and attempts to place blame on the victims. The Assembly calls on the MUSIAD organization to disclose whether military sales promoted during the High-Tech Port by MUSIAD aimed to “enable the Turkish Defense and Aerospace Industry to reach new markets” were used against Armenian Christians or shared with the jihadists that were transported by Turkey and financed by Azerbaijan to fight against the Armenian people.

“The Assembly welcomes the swift action by the Philadelphia Armenian community in protest of this latest and deceptive billboard campaign,”  stated Assembly Congressional Relations Director Mariam Khaloyan. “We urge the community to continue to make our voices heard, not only in Philadelphia, but in Minnesota and across the country,” Khaloyan added.