Azerbaijan's NGO launches international campaign

The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan, which comprises 11 influential humanitarian organizations and human rights watchdogs, said it was planning to collect signatures of Azerbaijanis living in the country and abroad to present them to the country's parliament, the Milli Majlis. Parliament is then expected to initiate procedures to recognize the massacre as act of genocide, RIA Novosti informs.

The NGO said it would send signatures, documents and footage of the Khojaly massacre to foreign parliaments and relevant international organizations for official international recognition.

The organization said it was also seeking the construction of a memorial to Khojaly victims in the capital of Baku.

The massacre happened in 1992 amid the conflict between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory with a largely Armenian population. The conflict first erupted in 1988, when the region claimed independence from Azerbaijan to join Armenia. According to a provisional data, over 30,000 people died on both sides between 1988 and 1994, and over 100 others died after a ceasefire was concluded in 1994.

In the early hours of February 26, Armenian military units entered Khojaly. According to Azerbaijan's data, 613 people were slaughtered, including 106 women and 83 children, and 1275 people were taken hostages. Later, Armenian authorities released the hostages, but the whereabouts of some of them are still unknown.

In late 2005, the OSCE Minsk Group for Nagorno Karabakh, which comprises representatives from the United States, France and Russia, visited Baku to settle the conflict. Officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said an agreement on the long-standing dispute could be reached in 2006.