Is it possible that the events like the January 20 tragedy happen in Azerbaijan?

Baku/20.01.23/Turan: January 20 in Azerbaijan is the day of commemoration of citizens killed on the streets of Baku by the Soviet army on the night of January 19-20, 1990. 33 years ago, the leadership of the USSR brought troops to Baku to suppress the national liberation movement and preserve the communist regime in Azerbaijan.

This operation, called "Strike", was prepared, and carried out by the USSR Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the KGB. The main role in the operation played the ALPHA special forces group and the sabotage groups of the USSR State Security Service. The bloody event resulted in killing 134 civilians, and more than 700 people were injured. However, no one from the leadership of the former USSR and Azerbaijan SSR was held accountable for the January tragedy.

Isa Gambar, an activist of the national liberation movement, the former chair of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan, the head of the National Center for Strategic Thinking, talks about the events that took place 33 years ago in the "Difficult Question" program.

According to him, "January 20" is one of the most important pages in the history of Azerbaijan. “Yes, this is a day of mourning. On this day, we mourn for the hundreds of dead and wounded citizens of the country. But this is not only a day of mourning. This is also a glorious, heroic page in the history of our people on the way to national independence,” Gambar said. In his opinion, three factors contributed to the events of January 20, 1990.

“Armenia has moved from territorial claims to Azerbaijan to open aggression. Armenians carried out attacks, murders of our people. Ethnic cleansing was carried out in Armenia, hundreds of thousands of Turks were expelled. The same was done in Karabakh. And this was the main reason for the emergence of a resistance movement in Azerbaijan.

In addition, there were intrigues of Moscow, which itself created this situation. It was not the first time that Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. And Moscow’s only shouting would be enough, as it happened before, to put an end to these encroachments. But this time, Moscow gave them a go. Outwardly, she tried to look unbiased, but in fact she pandered to the claims of the Armenians.

At the same time, the then communist leadership of Azerbaijan pursued a cowardly and extremely toothless policy. Instead of protecting the territorial integrity of the country, the interests of its own people, it was waiting for good news, good decisions from Moscow,” Gambar stressed.

“All these three factors caused extreme indignation and anger of the people. Protest moods intensified more in society. The events of January 20 became the culmination of all this,” he said.

-0—