US Congress commemorates Khojaly massacre

The US Congress held on Feb. 25 a special event devoted to the Khojaly massacre.

The event, organized as part of the "Justice for Khojaly" international awareness campaign, was attended by US congressmen, congressional staff, US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick, members of the diplomatic corps, as well as Turkish ambassador to the US Serdar Kılıç and representatives of the Azerbaijani and Turkish communities in the US.

Addressing the event, Mehriban Mammadova, president of the Azerbaijani Center of the Midwest of America, spoke about the traces left by the  Khojaly massacre on the bloody memory of the Azerbaijani people. 

Speaking about the tragic consequences of the Khojaly massacre, Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijani ambassador to the US, said the remembrance of the [Khojaly massacre] stresses the importance of early restoration of peace in the region.

In spite of all the suffering and injustices, Azerbaijan is looking to the future, the ambassador said, expressing hope for an early settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh-conflict.

Steve Cohen, the co-chair of the working group on Azerbaijan Congress, Dana Rohrabacher, the chairman of the US Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, and Congressmen Henry Cuellar and Donald Payne, in their speeches at the event, confirmed the continuation of occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories by Armenia, stressing the importance of greater US commitment to resolving the conflict. The congressmen said every human life is precious, expressing grief over the fact that the most of the Khojaly victims were women and children.

The film about the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in particular, about the Khojaly tragedy, which was made by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, was displayed at the end of the event.