According to the decree of the President of the Republic of
Azerbaijan of 26 March 1998, every year on 31 March Azerbaijan
commemorates the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis.This year he people of Azerbaijan once again pay their respect to
victims of massacres and ethnic cleansing conducted as a result of
imperial policies in the region and waves of Armenian aggression.

The dismemberment of the Azerbaijani people and the division of the
historical lands of Azerbaijan began with the Treaties of Gyulistan
and Turkmanchai, signed in 1813 and 1828. The national tragedy of the
divided Azerbaijani people continued with occupation of their lands.
As the result of implementation of this policy, a very rapid mass
resettlement of Armenians in Azerbaijani lands took place. The policy
of genocide became an integral part of the occupation of Azerbaijani
lands.Inspired by dreams of creating a “Greater Armenia”, Armenians, not
even concealing their intentions, carried out a series of large-scale
bloody actions against Azerbaijanis between 1905 and 1907. Hundreds
of settlements were destroyed and razed to the ground; the thousands
of Azerbaijanis were barbarically killed.

Taking advantage of the situation followed the World War I and the
February and October 1917 Revolution in Russia, Armenians began to
pursue the implementation of their plans under the banner of
Bolshevism. Under the watchword of combating counter-revolutionary
elements, in March 1918 the Baku Commune began to implement a
criminal plan aimed at eliminating Azerbaijanis from the whole of
Baku Province. The crimes perpetrated by Armenians in those days have
imprinted themselves forever in the memory of the Azerbaijani people.
Solely because of their ethnic affiliation, thousands of peaceful
Azerbaijanis were annihilated. The Armenians set fire to homes and
burned people alive. They destroyed national architectural treasures,
schools, hospitals, mosques and other facilities, and left the
greater part of Baku in ruins.

The genocide of the Azerbaijanis was carried out with particular
cruelty in Baku, Shemakha and Guba districts and the Karabakh,
Zangazur,Nakhichevan, Lenkoran and other regions of Azerbaijan. In
these areas, the civilian population was exterminated, with villages
put to the torch and national cultural monuments ruined and destroyed.

After the proclamation of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, the
events of March 1918 were at the center of attention. In 1919 and
1920 the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic observed 31 March as a
national day of mourning. This was in fact his first attempt to give
a political assessment of the policy of genocide against
Azerbaijanis. However, the demise of the Azerbaijani Democratic
Republic left this work unfinished.

In 1920, taking advantage of the sovetization of Transcaucasia for
heir own vile purposes, the Armenians declared Zangazur and the
number of Azerbaijani districts as a territory of the Armenian Soviet
Socialist Republic.

On 23 December 1947 the Armenians secured the adoption of a special
decision by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the resettlement
of Azerbaijanis from Armenian SSR to the Azerbaijani SSR, and between
1948 and 1953 they were able to have mass deportation of Azerbaijanis
from their historical lands conducted at the State level.

Beginning in the 1950th the Armenian nationalists, with the help of
their protectors, initiated a flagrant campaign of intellectual
aggression against the Azaerbaijani people. In books, magazines and
newspapers they sought to prove that the most treasured masterpieces
of the national culture of the Azerbaijanis, their classical heritage
and architectural monuments belonged to the Armenians.

Hundreds of Azerbaijanis were driven from the city of Erevan and
other districts of the Armenian SSR. Armenians grossly violated the
rights of Azerbaijanis, made it difficult for them to be educated in
their mother tongue, and pursued a policy of repression. The
historical names of Azeabaijani villages were changed; old toponyms
were replaced with modern names on a scale unprecedented in the
history of toponymy.

The new territorial claims of Armenia towards Azerbaijan instigated
by the leadership of USSR, at the end of 80s of the last century
resulted in a large-scale war, occupation of 20 percent of
territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan by the Armenian military
units, and becoming refugees and internally displaced persons of
about one million of Azerbaijanis.

In 1988 the remaining 200,000 Azerbaijanis were forcibly deported
from their historical homelands within the present-day Armenian
State. Killing and maiming accompanied the mass expulsion: 216
Azerbaijanis were killed during the ethnic cleansing in 1988-1989.

In February 1992, the Armenians committed unprecedented massacre of
the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly. The bloody
tragedy, which became known as the Khojaly Genocide, resulted in
extermination or capture of thousands of Azerbaijanis; the town was
razed to the ground. That tragic action by its scale and features is
in full conformity with the notion of genocide defined by provisions
set forth in the Convention “On Prevention and Punishment of Crime of
Genocide” adopted by the UN General Assembly resolution 260 {III}
dated December 9,1948.

All of Azerbaijan,s tragedies that took place in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries were accompanied by the seizure of lands
constituted various stages in the Armenia,s deliberate and systematic
policy of genocide against Azerbaijanis.

Addressing the nation on the occasion of the Day of Genocide of
Azerbaijanis, President Aliev stated, “…In contrast to the aggressive
Armenian nationalists who unceasingly declare to the world about the
pseudo-genocide and use it for the purpose of getting political-
financial dividends and to achieve some “compensations” we do not
follow such kind of aims informing the world about truth of the
genocide of Azerbaijanis. We consider that in the modern world
territorial claims against another state, ideology of hate against
the whole nations, attempts to solve the arguable issues between the
states and peoples by military means are inadmissible. At the same
time, the whole world should know the truth about the real genocide…”