“We will never forget Khojaly Massacre… We will always remember the human crimes committed against our brothers in Khojaly,” said President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he addressed the Justice and Development (AK) Party’s parliamentary group meeting.
“If there is someone who looks for a wild massacre in the world, then this massacre is in Khojaly,” said Erdogan.
Erdogan said that one of the biggest persecutions in the human history took place in Khojaly 26 years ago.
“Have you ever heard a country in the world which demanded or conducted sanctions against the perpetrators of Khojaly Massacre by mentioning the human rights,” said Erdogan.
The massacre of Feb. 25-26, 1992 is regarded as one of the bloodiest and most controversial incidents of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of the now-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region.
On the heels of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Armenian forces took over the town of Khojaly in Karabakh on Feb. 26 after battering it with heavy artillery and tanks, assisted by an infantry regiment. When the massacre happened, the population of the town was more than 11,000.
The two-hour offensive killed 613 Azeri citizens, including 116 women and 63 children and critically injured 487 others, according to Azerbaijani figures. One hundred and fifty of the 1,275 Azerbaijanis that the Armenians captured during the massacre remain missing.