Do you think Armenias feel responsibility for Khojaly? Should Armenians judge their Former Presidents as a war criminals?

In 2003, former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan admitted that the massacre served the purpose of intimidation of Azerbaijani civilians. In an interview with British journalist Thomas DeWaal, which was later published in the latter’s book Black Garden, Sargsyan suggested that the Khojaly massacre meant to break the stereotype that Armenians would not kill civilians.

“Before Khojaly, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype]. And that’s what happened. And we should also take into account that amongst those boys were people who had fled from Baku and Sumgait.” (De Wall, 2003, p. 172)

In the same interview Sargsyan also suggested that if civilians had fled, they would not have been killed.

/r/azerbaijan Thread Parent