Azerbaijani embassies in different countries organize events associated with this sorrowful occurrence, often talking about large quantities of people present therein. To verify all disinformation of the Azerbaijani agitprop is simply impossible due to lack of time. However, in some countries the citizens of those countries, not Armenians, report fraud and simply lies. The examples are not far to seek. It’s common knowledge that Israel and Azerbaijan have close relations, especially in the military-technical sphere. On February 22 various Azerbaijani media reported that Israeli Knesset commemorated the Khojaly victims. However, members of the Knesset in a conversation with us were surprised to learn this “news”, declaring that no such thing ever happened. And, in general, the Knesset has adopted a decision on that it does not discuss this kind of facts, much less gives them an assessment. According to the version of SalamNews, deputy of Azerbaijani Milli Majlis, Yevda Abramov declared that despite the attempt of a boycott by the Armenian lobby, hearings were held, and a relevant statement was adopted. “No statement was adopted. We assume that in one of the rooms of the Knesset Abramov spoke to his colleagues. But you cannot give out personal opinion as general, all the more so that this “general” does not exist. Moreover, we do not think that the Khojaly tragedy is one of the greatest tragedies of the XX century,” say the Knesset members, who can hardly be suspected of “indulging the Armenian lobby”. Let us leave Abramov’s statements on his conscience.

But the story had a continuation, this time in the Immigration and Absorption Committee. At the Committee session there was discussed the issue of the highland Jews who migrated to Israel. The event was opened by Chairman of the Community of Expatriate Azerbaijanis, member of Akko municipality, Vice-President of the Association “Azerbaijan – Israel” Nehemiah Shirin Mikhaeli. In an address to the Knesset, Shirin Mikhaeli chased them up to be very careful and observant in the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. But Mikhaeli was interrupted by MP Marina Solodkin, who demanded to keep to the point, and not engage in propaganda... And the committee continued its work.

Most likely the same thing happened in other countries: there gathered the community, only a minor part of it, of course, and winning reports on “Khojaly” flew to Baku. Especially stood out former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza, who joined the February 26 protest at the Istanbul Square of Taksim on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the so-called “Khojaly genocide”. “I know about the action in Taksim, and I’m joining it,” Matthew Bryza declared. On February 26 at Taksim Square, according to various estimates, there gathered about 50 000 people, mostly representatives of the Azerbaijani and Turkish youth. The protesters carried posters with anti-Armenian slogans.

Meanwhile, no one bothered to remember in Azerbaijan that it was on February 27 that pogroms and killings of Armenians began in Sumgait. And even if they remembered, then in the best traditions of Turkic misinformation, saying that “Armenians themselves slaughtered one another.”

As a reminder, on February 27, 1988 in Sumgait, located 20km from Baku, there began a planned destruction of the local Armenian population provoked by the Azerbaijani authorities. With the Soviet leadership being silent, as a result of a three-day massacre dozens of Armenians were injured and 53 killed, some of them being tortured to death and their corpses burned. On February 29 the Soviet Army finally entered Sumgait, although little was done to protect the Armenian population. Armenian pogroms in Sumgait were the first ethnic cleansing in the modern history of the Soviet Union and played a major role both in the collapse of the Union, and in the Karabakh war launch.

Denial of the genocide in Sumgait and misinformation of the world community by Azerbaijani authorities lay basis for continued anti-Armenian propaganda, which resulted in the 1990 pogroms of the Armenian population in Baku, killing thousands of civilians. As a result of mass pogroms of the Armenian population, the Armenian community in Azerbaijan ceased to exist and joined the ranks of the Diaspora, just like it used to be almost 100 years ago.