News - Azerbaijan official: Armenians lived in Baku, had prestige in society

The head of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan and chairman of the country’s State Commission for Servicemen, Prisoners of War and Missing Persons, Ali Naghiyev has admitted that until the Karabakh conflict, many Armenians had lived in numerous cities of the Azerbaijan SSR. "Until the beginning of the conflict, the Armenian population lived in [Azerbaijani capital] Baku and other regions of Azerbaijan, including Karabakh, in comfortable conditions, had prestige in the society," said Naghiyev, speaking at a conference entitled "Strengthening of National and Global Efforts to Determine the Fate of the Missing." This Azerbaijani official, however, did not say why the Armenian population had left Azerbaijan. Naghiyev did not speak also about the pogrom, massacres, murders, and numerous other brutalities that caused hundreds of thousands of Armenians to flee from Azerbaijan. Instead, the head of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan "used the opportunity" and accused the Armenian side of "not being constructive," and called on Armenia to " collaborate more closely in matters related to detainees and hostages." Azerbaijan denies the existence of many Armenian detainees in the country, has not found the culprits of the brutal Azerbaijani war crimes of recent years against Armenians, and sees "constructiveness" only in meeting its own demands.