Karabakh Armenians mark 25th anniversary of liberation movement
http://www.armenianow.com/karabakh/43478/armenia_karabakh_stepanakert_liberation_anniversar y_rally
KARABAKH | 14.02.13 | 14:13
Photo: NKR President's office
A rally dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the start of the
national-liberation movement in Karabakh was held in Revival Square in
Stepanakert on Wednesday.
Speaking at the rally, Karabakh President Bako Sahakyan described the
holding of such an event as a significant phenomenon both from the
political and moral-psychological points of view.
Primate of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church,
Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, Karabakh government members, veterans
of the movement and thousands of ordinary citizens took part in the
rally.
On February 13, 1988, Armenians in Karabakh, then an autonomous oblast
in the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, began demonstrating in
their capital, Stepanakert, in favor of unification with then Soviet
Armenia. Six days later they were joined by mass marches in the
Armenian capital of Yerevan, with the Soviet of People's Deputies in
Karabakh voting overwhelmingly on February 20 to request the transfer
of the region to Armenia.
Nationalists in Azerbaijan responded with pogroms in Sumgait and
further ethnic reprisals against hundreds of thousands of Armenians
living in Baku and other cities and towns across the country. The
collapse of the USSR in late 1991 triggered a war over the enclave
that ended in 1994 with Karabakh Armenians gaining de-facto
independence from Azerbaijan.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.armenianow.com/karabakh/43478/armenia_karabakh_stepanakert_liberation_anniversar y_rally
KARABAKH | 14.02.13 | 14:13
Photo: NKR President's office
A rally dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the start of the
national-liberation movement in Karabakh was held in Revival Square in
Stepanakert on Wednesday.
Speaking at the rally, Karabakh President Bako Sahakyan described the
holding of such an event as a significant phenomenon both from the
political and moral-psychological points of view.
Primate of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church,
Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, Karabakh government members, veterans
of the movement and thousands of ordinary citizens took part in the
rally.
On February 13, 1988, Armenians in Karabakh, then an autonomous oblast
in the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, began demonstrating in
their capital, Stepanakert, in favor of unification with then Soviet
Armenia. Six days later they were joined by mass marches in the
Armenian capital of Yerevan, with the Soviet of People's Deputies in
Karabakh voting overwhelmingly on February 20 to request the transfer
of the region to Armenia.
Nationalists in Azerbaijan responded with pogroms in Sumgait and
further ethnic reprisals against hundreds of thousands of Armenians
living in Baku and other cities and towns across the country. The
collapse of the USSR in late 1991 triggered a war over the enclave
that ended in 1994 with Karabakh Armenians gaining de-facto
independence from Azerbaijan.
From: A. Papazian