YEREVAN. – Exactly 30 years ago in these days, events painfully familiar to us from history took place in Baku, the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, with the obvious permission and support of the authorities. Armenia’s National Assembly (NA) Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan stated this in his speech today at the joint special session of the interparliamentary committee of the NAs of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Armenian pogroms in Baku, and also listed the names of the victims of these pogroms.

"People were subjected to inhumane torture, thousands were forced to leave their homes and continue their lives as refugees," he said in his speech, in particular. “Shortly before these pogroms in 1990, there were also [Armenian] pogroms in [Azerbaijan’s] Sumgait and Kirovabad-Gandzak.

We can find the evidence of the same policy everywhere (…) in Azerbaijan.

The pogroms of Baku were only part of a long-standing anti-Armenian policy pursued by the Azerbaijani authorities.

It is noteworthy that today the Azerbaijani authorities have adopted the same script already for the other ethnic minorities living in the territory of Azerbaijan.

It should be reminded that the pogroms and violence against Armenians were condemned three times by the European Parliament (…).

Everything I noted above (…) make Artsakh Armenians’ physical secure existence under Azerbaijan's sovereignty impossible.

Accordingly, the only possible way for the existence of Artsakh Armenians is the self-determination of Artsakh, and Armenia is the guarantor of the Artsakh people’s exercise of that right.”