Several Azerbaijani
media outlets
announced last week that a group of Lithuanian parliamentarians had adopted a statement condemning the Khojaly Massacre on April 27. In addition, the Azerbaijani MFA reported the news on its
Twitter
page.
According to the news outlets, the group of Lithuanian MPs had expressed their condolences for Azerbaijanis who had suffered in the massacre and called for the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the Karabakh territories currently under Armenian rule, calling the Karabakh conflict one of the most tragic conflicts occurring in the 20th century.
The source of the news, as stated in several media outlets, was the Azerbaijani Embassy in Lithuania.
However, Meydan TV was unable to find news of the act in non-Azerbaijani news sources, nor on the website of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Lithuania. The Lithuanian Parliament’s website was also quiet on the matter.
Meydan TV got in touch with a representative of the Lithuanian Parliament, the Seimas.
“The appeal mentioned in the article was circulated by one of members of Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and should be understood as a personal opinion of a particular Member of the Parliament. This document is not and should not be considered as a document of the Seimas, the Committee of Foreign Affairs, nor the interparliamentary group of the Seimas for relations with Azerbaijan.
Here I would like to underline that the official position of Seimas regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh remains unchanged. Lithuania’s main interest is a safe, stable, prosperous and democratic region. Any escalation is worrying. Lithuania supports the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. All the parties should aim at re-energising the Minsk process through sustained, high-level political leadership by all its key external actors”, the statement reads.
It was not possible for Meydan TV to find about more about the MP who circulated the document nor was it possible to obtain a copy of the document itself.
“The appeal was handed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan. As a result we do not have definite information on who put forward the idea and since it was handed directly to the Minister of FA of Azerbaijan we are not able to provide you with a written version of the appeal”, the source from Seimas told MeydanTV.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Khojaly massacre, which occurred in the town of Khojaly in Nagorno Karabakh around 10 km northeast of its capital currently de-facto capital of Stepanakert. 613 civilians lost their lives in the fighting in between February 25 – 27, 1992. 1,275 were taken hostage.
“To this day, 150 people from Khojaly remain missing. 56 people were killed with outrageous brutality, 8 families were totally exterminated, 25 children lost both parents while 130 children lost at least one parent in a genocide which has become the most brutal punishment of civilians during the whole years of the conflict’s military phase”, reads a
statement
of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights defined Khojaly as “acts of particular gravity which may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity”.
Over the years, many countries have adopted resolutions aimed at condemning the Khojaly events, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Jordan, Pakistan, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Honduras, Sudan, Djibouti, Colombia, Scotland, Romania and Guatemala.
Since 2010, up to twenty three states in the United States have recognised the Khojaly massacre.
