The event was moderated by the Deputy Director of the complex, Mehriban Aliyeva. During the webinar, the complex’s staff members—Doctor of Philosophy in History Tahmina Aliyeva, Nurcan Allahverdiyeva, and Orkhan Huseynov—stated that Armenian nationalists, at various stages of history, carried out ethnic cleansing, deportations, and genocides against Azerbaijanis in pursuit of realizing the mythical idea of a “Greater Armenia.”
One of the most horrific tragedies inflicted upon the Azerbaijani people was the mass massacres committed with particular cruelty in March–April 1918 by Dashnak-Bolshevik armed groups operating under the mandate of the Baku Soviet.
It was also noted that the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic established an Extraordinary Investigation Commission to examine the grave crimes committed by Armenians. The government took a number of measures to preserve the truth revealed by the commission in the national memory and to communicate it to the international community. However, after the fall of the Democratic Republic, this process was halted, and further investigation and appropriate political and legal assessment of these events were prevented.
Only 80 years later—on March 26, 1998—did the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, National Leader Heydar Aliyev, sign a decree “On the Genocide of Azerbaijanis,” which gave an adequate political assessment of these tragic events and declared March 31 as the “Day of the Genocide of Azerbaijanis.”
At the end of the webinar, an exchange of views took place around questions of interest to the participants. It should be noted that more than 35 employees from reserves operating under the State Service for the Protection, Development, and Restoration of Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan participated in the webinar.
