YEREVAN. – The objective of the mass pogroms that were organized thirty years ago these days in the Armenian-populated town of Sumgait in Azerbaijan was to frighten Armenians with a new genocide, and to force them to abandon their national liberation movement.

Chairman of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, Ara Babloyan, on Wednesday stated the aforesaid in the parliament session, and regarding the 30th anniversary of these pogroms.

“Hundreds of Armenian residents were brutally murdered as a result of the crime that was organized at the [Azerbaijan] state level,” the NA speaker noted, in particular.

But Babloyan stressed that, sadly, this crime that was committed thirty years ago was not properly assessed by the international community, whereas the respective impunity enabled Azerbaijan to subsequently carry out Armenian massacres also in Kirovabad (Ganja), capital city Baku, Maragha, and other Armenian-populated settlements in Azerbaijan.