Diogo Pinto: 30 Years Ago Azerbaijan Launched Large-Scale Pogroms and Ethnic Cleansing against Armenians

• 02.21.2018, 17:29
•  Europe,  NKR

Photo by S.Gorbunov

Diogo Pinto, the director of European Friends of Armenia, authored an article entitled "Nagorno-Karabakh: 30 years on, time for the EU to raise its game".

The article, in particular, goes back to the start of the Karabakh movement, stating:

"February 20, 2018 marks 30 years since the People’s Deputies of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) approved the formal petition requesting the transfer of jurisdiction from Azerbaijani to Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)."

"After the 1917 Russian Revolution, Nagorno-Karabakh was a self-governed territory with all specific attributes of de facto statehood. However, in 1921, Stalin intervened to reverse a decision confirming Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Soviet Armenia, putting the region under the jurisdiction of Soviet Azerbaijan."

For the next 70 years, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh would repeatedly appeal to Moscow to re-establish the oblast as part of Armenia, only to be ignored.

"In 1985, Gorbachev’s rise to power would inaugurate a new Soviet era. His policies of glasnost and perestroika provided the political space for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to begin their path towards self-determination after decades of mistreatment.

However, the Azerbaijani SSR not only denied the petition made on 20 February 1988, but also launched large-scale pogroms and ethnic cleansing against Armenians living in Azerbaijan, first in Sumgait and later in Kirovabad, Baku, and other cities. Hundreds of innocent people were killed in their homes, and many were tortured and forced into exile," the article continues reading.