ANC responds to Azerbaijani president`s groundless accusations 

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."