Interfax News Agency, Russia
March 15 2008
Azeri official dismisses Armenian attacks on UN resolution
BAKU
An aide to Azerbaijan’s president has dismissed Armenian attacks on
an Azeri-introduced UN General Assembly resolution of March 14, that
demands immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azeri
territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.
"The statements of the Armenian officials are no more than propaganda
efforts to play down this resolution and divert the attention of the
Armenian public from the domestic political crisis. Any of the
attempts at comparative quantitative analysis cannot stand up to any
criticism, not even from the point of view of Armenian propaganda
itself. It would be enough to mention the recent widely advertised
celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the recognition by the
European Parliament of the so-called anti-Armenian genocide of 1915,"
Fuad Akhundov, head of a section in the presidential executive
service, told Interfax on Saturday.
Akhundov was referring to massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire in 1915.
"I have in mind not the essence of the matter but the comparative
analysis of numerical indicators that Armenia is making in an attempt
to play down the resolution of the UN General Assembly," Akhundov
said.
The European Parliament’s 1987 document declaring the 1915 massacres
an act of anti-Armenian genocide received the support of only 60 of
the legislature’s 500 members. Those who voted in favor represented
France and Greece alone.
The other 10 countries that took part in the poll voted against the
document, and that meant just 10 fewer votes, Akhundov said.
The majority of European Parliament members abstained.
Friday’s UN resolution was backed by 37 votes, with only seven states
voting against, Akhundov pointed out.
"It is also worth noting that in the European Parliament the genocide
motion received the support of deputies who did not have to express
the official position of their countries, whereas voting in the
General Assembly reflects the point of view not of deputies but of
states. So, if from the point of view of Armenian propaganda the
recognition of the genocide of Armenians by the European Parliament
is an important event on the European scale, yesterday’s vote of the
General Assembly is much more important on the global scale. So it is
not worth trying to delude the public in their own country once
again," Akhundov said.