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  • NKR Will Host International Conference "Azeri Terror And Policy Of E

    NKR WILL HOST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "AZERI TERROR AND POLICY OF ETHNIC CLEANSING"

    PanARMENIAN.Net
    29.01.2010 14:49 GMT+04:00

    /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Republic of Artsakh will host an international
    conference "Azeri terror and policy of ethnic cleansing in Karabakh".

    Conference marks 90th anniversary of March 23, 1920 Shushi tragedy
    and 20th anniversary of Baku massacres of Armenians.

    The conference aims to reveal and provide scientific grounds for
    mistakes of the past, come up with offers to prevent terror and ethnic
    cleansings in future, give political estimate of 20th century Azeri
    policy of pogroms in Gandzak, Nagorno Karabakh and other Transcaucasian
    regions.

    The conference is organized by NKR Ministries of Education and
    Science, Culture and Youth Affairs, Artsakh State University, "Kachar"
    scientific center and Shoushi museum of regional studies.

    Participation applications should be submitted before February 15.

    Conference participants' works will be translated into Russian and
    English, and published based on final decision of conference board.

    The town of Shushi is situated on a high plateau in the center
    of Nagorno Karabakh, ten kilometers from the NKR capital city
    Stepanakert. Due to its natural geographic location the plateau has
    always had a strategic significance.

    The first record about Shushi, the former administrative center of
    Nagorno Karabakh, dates back to the XVIII century. The town preserved
    its significance as a strategic outpost also in the beginning of the
    XIX century, when Transcaucasus were under the rule of the Russian
    Empire, and Nagorno Karabakh constituted part of the Elizavetpol
    Goubernya (province) of Russia. It is by accident that one Russian
    military figure wrote that "the one, who will take Shushi, will rule
    over Karabakh."

    Shushi grew and by the XIX century it became one of the spiritual
    centers of the Caucasus. Political thinkers and the cultural elite
    of the Armenians of the Caucasus were shaped here.

    After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1918, the Karabakh
    Armenians endured one of the most difficult periods of their history.

    Azerbaijan made huge unfounded claims to Karabakh and Zangezur, the
    historic territories of Armenia. Such actions of Azerbaijan were
    supported by the tragic circumstances during World War I, as well
    as by the patronage of the criminal authorities of Turkey. In 1915,
    the Ottoman Empire carried out genocide of one and a half million
    Armenian people in Western Armenia. The young Republic of Armenia was
    already so exhausted that it could not defend the Armenian population
    and assert its rights on Karabakh and Zangezur.

    However, the population of Nagorno Karabakh and Zangezur refused to
    recognize the jurisdiction of the newly created Azerbaijani Republic.

    Azerbaijan, without having any legitimate rights to control this
    region, tried to subjugate Nagorno Karabakh with the help of Turkish
    troops. On September 15, 1918 Turkish troops entered Baku, and as a
    result of the massacres, thirty thousand Armenians were murdered.

    March 23, 1920 was the most tragic - the Turkish-Azerbaijani troops
    burnt and plundered Shushi, the fifth largest town in the Caucasus.

    Within three days, the population of the town decreased by 65%. The
    Turkish Musavatist armed groups eliminated 25 thousand Armenians in
    Shushi. Seven thousand well-furnished two-story houses and beautiful
    cultural and administrative buildings were ravaged and turned to
    ashes. The Armenian part of the town was burnt and was not rebuilt
    until the beginning of the 1960s.

    The Liberation of Shushi marked the first significant military
    victory by Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave during
    the Nagorno-Karabakh War. The battle was part of a larger territorial
    land dispute by the local Armenian population in Karabakh, aided by
    the neighboring Republic of Armenia, to gain independence from the
    Republic of Azerbaijan.

    The battle took place in the strategically important Azeri mountain
    town of Shusha (known as Shushi to Armenians) on the evening of 8 May
    1992, and fighting swiftly concluded the following day after Armenian
    forces captured and drove out the defending Azeris. Armenian military
    commanders based in Nagorno-Karabakh's capital of Stepanakert had been
    contemplating the capture of the town after a hail of Azeri military
    bombardment had begun shelling that city.

    The seizure of the town proved decisive. Shusha was the most important
    military stronghold that Azerbaijan held in Nagorno-Karabakh -
    its loss marked a turning point in the war, and led to a series of
    military victories by Armenian forces in the course of the conflict.

    However some of the shelling was, according to the accounts of former
    residents, either indiscriminate or intentionally aimed at civilian
    targets.

    In January 1990, Azerbaijani authorities instigated the Armenian
    pogroms in Baku. Some 400 Armenians were killed and 200 thousand
    were exiled in the period of January 13-19. The exact number of those
    killed was never determined, as no investigation was carried out into
    the crimes.

    On January 13, a crowd numbering 50 thousand people divided into
    groups and started "cleaning" the city of Armenians. On January 17,
    the European Parliament called on EU Council of Foreign Ministers
    and European Council to protect Armenians and render assistance to
    Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On January 18, a group of U.S. Senators
    sent a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev to express concerns over the
    violence against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan and called
    for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.
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