Following is Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s address to the nation on the occasion of March 31, the day of genocide of Azerbaijanis.

Dear fellow countrymen! Dear compatriots!

The day of genocide of Azerbaijanis, March 31, has been yearly marked officially in the Republic of Azerbaijan since it was established at the initiative of our national leader Heydar Aliyev in 1989.

Although the date is directly connected with atrocities and massacres committed by Armenian armed groups against Azerbaijanis in 1918, its chronology is very extensive.

Objectives of the policy pursued by Armenian nationalists against our nation over nearly two hundred years were using military, political, ideological and other methods to oust Azerbaijanis from their native lands, annihilate them physically to seize new territories and, finally, create the mythical state of “great Armenia”.

Resettling in the beginning of the 19th century of great number of Armenian families from Ottoman Empire and Iran in Karabakh and Zangezur; massive executions and massacres committed by Armenian armed groups in various regions of the Caucasus in 1905 and 1918; deportation of our compatriots from the lands of their ancestries in the Republic of Armenia between 1948 and 1953; the large-scale war started in 1988 to separate Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan and its still existing bitter consequences; and, finally, the Khojaly genocide of 1992 are bloody pages of the policy of genocide deliberately carried out by aggressive Armenian nationalists against Azerbaijanis.

As a result of this crafty policy, historical Azerbaijani lands were grabbed by Armenians, with hundreds of thousands of our compatriots turned into refugees and internally displaced, and tens of thousands of them killed.

At present, twenty percent of the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan is under occupation of Armenian military.

The government and citizens of Azerbaijan as well as our compatriots living abroad have two closely connected and important tasks to solve: liberation of our occupied territories and bringing truth about the genocide of Azerbaijanis to the global community and exposing false theses of the crafty Armenian propaganda. To solve these tasks we need to use against Armenia the political, legal, economic and ideological methods of pressure, as well as all internal and external possibilities.

Armenia is incapable of competing with us economically or militarily. International organizations and world parliaments are gradually becoming aware of the realities of Azerbaijan, call Armenia a state-aggressor, and demand liberation of the occupied territories from it.

It should be kept in mind, however, that the enemy we are facing is one having rich experience in committing acts of ideological sabotage and misinformation, influential lobby and well-organized diasporas in a number of countries. To achieve their goals, Armenian nationalists-chauvinists resort to any dirty methods making up new false ideas to distract attention from the fact of occupation. We have to consider these factors while organizing counter-propaganda activities.

Our compatriots organizing events in various countries should scale them up, hold them in a regular manner and attract attention of the global community and political circles.

Besides, this work should be coordinated with the activities of the Turkish and other diaspora organizations supporting us.

The recent first forum of Azerbaijani and Turkish diaspora organizations in Baku demonstrated that joint activity makes us much stronger.

I am convinced that thanks to the patriotism and good organization of our citizens, and the purposeful activities and political will of the leadership of Azerbaijan, we will achieve solution to all the problems we are facing, including restoration of the territorial integrity and sovereignty, as well as exposure of those who carried out the policy of real genocide against our people, and whose ideology is hostility and hatred towards other nations.

Dear fellow countrymen! Dear compatriots!

On these mournful days, I pay tribute to the blessed memory of the victims of the genocide, pray for Allah to rest their souls in peace, and wish our people prosperity and happiness.