Western Azerbaijan Community calls out cultural and physical genocide by Armenians

The genocide carried out under the pretext of deportation by Armenians involved not only physical destruction but also moral annihilation, resulting in ethnic cleansing and the creation of a monoethnic state in the territory of present-day Armenia.

According to local media, Zahid Jafarov, a board member of the Western Azerbaijan Community (WAC) and chairman of the community’s Legal Commission, made the remarks while speaking to journalists.

Jafarov highlighted that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s speech during the event marking the 80th anniversary of the establishment of NANA (Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences) served as a guiding directive for the WAC.

"This speech demonstrated that the return of Azerbaijanis to Western Azerbaijan is a key priority of the Azerbaijani state. What was committed against Western Azerbaijanis [in the territory of present-day Armenia] should be referred to as genocide, as all these actions were part of an ethnic cleansing campaign," he noted.

He emphasised that Azerbaijanis were not a small, marginal ethnic group in Western Azerbaijan.

"We were long-established residents of this territory with a clearly expressed national identity. The genocide perpetrated by Armenians encompassed not only physical destruction but also moral annihilation. The destruction of national identity is even more dangerous than physical extermination. The demolition of monuments and sites of Azerbaijani cultural heritage constituted cultural genocide. All crimes outlined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide were committed by Armenians against Azerbaijanis," Jafarov said.

By Tamilla Hasanova