Yerevan hosts "Ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan: Baku 1990" roundtable discussion

PanARMENIAN.Net - The office of the Armenian Ombudsman has initiated "Ethnic cleansing in Azerbaijan: Baku 1990" roundtable discussion in Yerevan on Friday.



"The purpose of the event is to remind the international community about the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Azerbaijan," said Armen Harutyunyan, the Ombudsman of the Republic of Armenia.



"We have no intention to propagandize hatred but we can't forget what happened to 600 thousand Armenians in Azerbaijan," he said.



Twenty years ago the Azerbaijani authorities instigated the pogroms of Armenian population in Baku. 400 Armenians were killed and 200 thousand were exiled in the period of January 13-19. The exact number of those killed was never determined, as no investigation was carried out into the crimes.



On January 13, 1990 a crowd numbering 50 thousand people divided into groups and started "cleaning" the city of Armenians. On January 17, the European Parliament called on EU Council of Foreign Ministers and European Council to protect Armenians and render assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On January 18, a group of U.S. Senators sent a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev to express concerns over the violence against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan and called for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.