ArmInfo. Without waiting for a reaction by official authorities of Armenia, in the Armenian National Congress party (ANC) of the first President of Armenia Levon Ter- Petrosyan responded to the groundless accusations of the President of Azerbaijan about the events in Ivanyan (Khojaly - Az.) in the early 90s of the last century.
The party recalled that on May 28, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev blamed "Armenia for the tragedy in Khojaly and demanded an apology from Armenia."
The ANC statement received by ArmInfo recalls that, according to the testimony of the then President of Azerbaijan Ayaz Mutalibov (1991-1992), the Khojaly tragedy was organized by the National Front of Azerbaijan.
"In fact, the Republic of Armenia has been officially accused of committing the "genocide in Khojaly" and new demands have been presented to it in this regard, which is fraught with serious consequences for the international reputation of Armenia and further complicates the prospects for the settlement of Armenian- Azerbaijani relations. It is also obvious that Aliyev, taking advantage of the unintelligible and the incompetent policy of the Armenian authorities, puts forward a new unfair and humiliating condition for reconciliation with Armenia and the conclusion of peace.
In this situation, the Armenian authorities have not reacted in any way to the officially presented accusation-demand for several days now and have maintained an absolutely incomprehensible silence, essentially encouraging such behavior by Azerbaijan," the ANC was indignant.
The party of the first president of Armenia added that the silence of the Armenian authorities raises serious suspicions, especially since there is a lot of reliable evidence denying the responsibility of the Armenian side in the Khojaly case.
"The most important of them was the statement of the first President of Azerbaijan Ayaz Mutalibov immediately after the events, in which he accused the National Front of Azerbaijan of organizing the Khojaly tragedy and using it to remove him from power (see Mutalibov's interview with Czech journalist Dana Mazalova, published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta " dated April 2, 1992).
This discovery is confirmed by other important testimony, documents and video materials, including video footage of the famous television journalist, National Hero of Azerbaijan Chingiz Mustafayev and his testimony to the parliamentary commission investigating the Khojaly events, which are quite well documented in various sources.
It is noteworthy that a few months later he was killed under suspicious circumstances. In the same series are numerous public speeches and testimony of Dana Mazalova against the attempts of the Azerbaijani propaganda machine to falsify the Khojaly events, publication of the famous Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev in the Real Azerbaijan newspaper in the issue of April 29, 2005.
This list of evidence is not intended to be exhaustive. Those interested can find them on the Internet and in many published works, in particular in Tatul Hakobyan's book "Artsakh Diary: Green and Black".
In the presence of such abundant material, the lack of a decisive reaction from the Armenian authorities once again proves that the steering wheel of the country is in the hands of an incompetent group that does not represent the state interests of Armenia," the ANC concluded.
In addition to mentioning Mutalibov's interview, Ter-Petrosyan's party also prepared several other links about the events of those times: testimony of Chingiz Mustafayev to the Committee for Investigation of the Khojaly Events of the Azerbaijani Parliament: https://youtu.be/iKyVe2n7FtE; interview with Dana Mazalova for the Armenpress news agency: https://armenpress.am/rus/news/1005249.html ; interview of Einulla Fatullayev with Radio Liberty journalist Daisy Sindelar after his release from prison https://www.panorama.am/ru/news/2011/11/23/fatullayev-xocali/851671
As the late Dame Mazalova recalled, in March 1992, the CSCE Mediation Mission under the leadership of the current Chairman of the CSCE Council of Ministers, Jiri Dienstbier, documented the unburied and decomposing corpses of the dead. In total, 613 corpses were counted then (thanks to this mission and their recorded data, Azerbaijan cannot inflate these numbers, as in other cases it is done - ed.)
"In mid-March 1992, the Azerbaijani cameraman and journalist Chingiz Mustafayev, with whom we were friends, showed me at his home in Baku raw video footage that he had filmed in February on the outskirts of Agdam. I would like to especially emphasize that Chingiz was the only cameraman who filmed the dead there are people there. But the footage that Mustafayev showed me had nothing in common with the video and photo footage that the Azerbaijani side is now presenting to the whole world as his filming.
Chingiz flew there by helicopter and took some of the dead with him to bury them. These were the bodies of Meskhetian Turks, lying about 10 km from Agdam, all of them were dressed, intact. The territory was controlled by the Azerbaijani side, and among the corpses Chingiz replaced a man in military uniform who was not afraid of the Azerbaijani helicopter. I saw all this in the footage that he showed me. When Mustafayev returned a few days later for the rest of the bodies, he was amazed at the changes in their condition: the corpses had been scalped," Mazalova said in one of her interviews.
In another interview, she noted that "The Khojaly events took place at the end of February, and according to Muslim rites, the bodies should have been buried until the second day. It is known that the bodies were discovered near Azerbaijani units controlled by the Popular Front, as evidenced by the filming of Chingiz Mustafayev from On February 28, Chingiz Mustafayev made another recording at the scene of the incident on March 2. As it became clear when comparing the two filmings, the corpses were moved in the frames of the first filming, which were already distorted in the frames of the second filming - the bodies were scalped and other desecrations were committed. However, it is noteworthy that during the filming on February 28, Azerbaijani servicemen were walking calmly at the scene, and they moved the bodies. I feel very guilty for not copying these photographs. You see, the interview with Mutalibov still torments me. was the result of these filming and conversations with Chingiz."
