"BLACK DATE" FOR SARGSYAN

These days Azerbaijan marks one of the saddest dates in its history - the anniversary of the Xocali genocide, the biggest tragedy during the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan. The result is known to all: 613 dead, 487 disabled and 1,275 hostages, and the fate of 150 of them is still unknown. Among the dead are 106 women and 83 children. Several families were completely annihilated.

The circumstances of the tragedy have been described many times in Azerbaijani sources and not only. Civilian deaths were not what they call "collateral damage" - the refugees were deliberately shot and killed in cold blood on the road from Xocali to Agdam. At first, they were fired at in the village of Katuk - from three sides, according to the rules of military art. This was followed by a terrible massacre in the village of Naxcivanik. In "hot pursuit" of the tragedy and largely thanks to the filming of Cingiz Mustafayev, the world was shocked by the cruelty and sadism of the Armenian aggressors. It is the tragedy in Xocali that turned to be the watershed. French journalist Jean-Yves Junet admitted: "... We witnessed the Xocali tragedy and saw the bodies of hundreds of dead civilians - women, children, old people and defenders of Xocali. We were provided with a helicopter, and we filmed everything we saw around Xocali from above. However, the Armenians started firing at our helicopter and we could not finish filming. This is a terrible picture. I've heard a lot about wars and atrocities of German fascists, but Armenians surpassed them, killing 5-6-year-olds and the civilian population. "Rory Patrick, a journalist of Britain's Frontline News Television, delivered his verdict: "The crime in Xocali cannot be justified in the eyes of the world community."

Later, Thomas de Waal, in his book "Black Garden", will cite remarks by Serzh Sargsyan, the then "field commander" and now Armenian president: "Before Xocali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they could joke with us, they thought that the Armenians were not capable of raising their hand at the civilian population. We managed to break this (stereotype). This is what happened." According to Thomas de Waal, "Sargsyan's estimate makes one look at the most brutal massacre of the Karabakh war from a different angle. It is possible that these massacres were, even if only partly, a deliberate act of intimidation."

Today the Xocali tragedy is known and spoken about far outside Azerbaijan. The parliaments of many countries recognize the events of that terrible night as genocide of Azerbaijanis. The Justice for Xocali campaign has already led to significant shifts in world public opinion, and this process will continue.

And this process apparently seriously disturbs Yerevan. Otherwise, in his scandalous speech at the congress of the Union of Volunteers Yerkrapa, i.e. participants in hostilities against Azerbaijan, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan would not have talked about the "black dates" in the official Azerbaijani calendar.

Yerevan often makes aggressive statements. Similarly, attempts to blame all sins on the Azerbaijani side have also become traditional here. However, speaking to "volunteer veterans", Mr Sargsyan surpassed all, for which he earned quite an expected rebuke from Baku. Statements by the Armenian leadership, which has committed serious war crimes and prepared and carried out the Xocali genocide, about peace and moral values are ultimate hypocrisy, said the spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, Elman Abdullayev. "The Armenian leadership, which has carried out ethnic cleansing against peoples living on the territory of Armenia, including the indigenous Azerbaijani residents, as well as against the Azerbaijani population in the occupied territories, does not even have the moral right to level accusations against Azerbaijan," the Foreign Ministry said on its website. "Wasn't it Serzh Sargsyan and his predecessor Robert Kocharyan who spoke about the ethnic incompatibility of the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples? The result of this racist policy against other peoples and nations is that Armenia has turned into a mono-ethnic state," Abdullayev said. According to the representative of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, the Armenian leadership is responsible for the fact that hundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens are leaving the country and living outside its borders as illegal immigrants. "Sargsyan, who is trying to divert people's attention from pressing domestic problems, is using false populist slogans and is making anti-Azerbaijani and racist statements, should clarify the situation and draw attention to the fact that Armenia, where 40 % of the population lives below the poverty line, is on the brink of disaster," Abdullayev said. He noted that, unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan has retained its multinational nature and the republic is recognized as an example of tolerance in the world.

"However, Sargsyan should not forget that Azerbaijan will never allow the establishment of a second Armenian state on its territory and the annexation of its lands. Sooner or later, the occupied territories will be liberated, and Azerbaijan will ensure its territorial integrity, sovereignty and the inviolability of its borders," Abdullayev said.

Talking about the "glorious Armenian army", Serzh Sargsyan appealed to the concepts of the early 1990s. But it remained behind the scenes whether they realize in Yerevan how much the balance of forces has changed in the region. Renewed fighting today is not going to be a "carbon copy" of the events of the early 1990s, not to mention the fact that in the modern world, wars are won on the home front, and the military-economic potential of Azerbaijan today is completely unattainable for Armenia.

It was impossible not to notice that, accusing Azerbaijan of all mortal sins and trying to remind the audience of the "glorious times" of territorial conquests in the early 1990s, Mr Sargsyan could not ignore pressing problems facing Armenia. And he was forced to admit that "today our war is to develop our country, against any kind of despair, for faith, for each of our compatriot caught in the grip of poverty, and for new opportunities for the development and establishment of a modern state". And at the same time, he understood that Armenia has already hopelessly lost this war. Otherwise, he would not have admitted the "increased uncertainty" and reluctantly forced himself to say that the pension reform in Armenia, which is opposed, according to various estimates, by up to 80 % of its citizens, is designed to "strongly tie people to their own country", i.e. to prevent citizens of Armenia from emigrating, which has become a national disaster. He would not have had to diligently avoid questions about the economic situation of his country.

But at the same time, Sargsyan openly hinted that he relies on the support of Yerkrapa, i.e. "volunteer veterans" on the domestic political scene, because, as shown by many "indirect indicators", socio-political tensions in Armenia have reached a dangerous point.

And in this situation, the statement of the leader of the Heritage party and former rival of Serzh Sargsyan in the presidential elections, Raffi Hovannisyan, is perceived quite differently. Recalling Sargsyan's statement that one can save Armenia only with arms in their hands and that most people sympathize with him in this matter, he continued: "Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, but indeed most of the country's population supports Serzh Sargsyan only in this question. There is an atmosphere of hatred in the country, and many are thinking about how to implement these words - to take up arms." Hovannisyan suggests "thinking better of it" and not engaging in a civil war, however, it seems that neither the government nor the opposition rules out a "military option" in Armenia.

Apparently, the "Karabakh clan" intends to deal with internal political problems in Armenia with the same methods as they used for achieving "the self-determination of the Karabakh Armenians". So Sargsyan's words about "black dates" may turn into a bleak prophecy for Armenia.