The Turkish Parliament on Wednesday hosted a commemoration marking the 34th anniversary of the killings in Khojaly, with officials calling for remembrance and warning against future atrocities.
The event, titled the “Khojaly Genocide Commemoration Program,” was organized at the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) by the Türkiye-Azerbaijan Friendship, Cooperation and Solidarity Foundation (TADIV) and the Azerbaijani Embassy in Ankara. A photo exhibition accompanied the ceremony.
Among those attending were TADIV board chair Aygün Attar, Türkiye’s Chief Ombudsman Mehmet Akarca, head of the Türkiye-Azerbaijan parliamentary friendship group Şamil Ayrım, Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker Gökhan Günaydın and Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Ankara, Rashad Mammadov.
Attar, who also chairs the Presidential Security and Foreign Policies Board, said the 1992 events in Khojaly continue to shape collective memory despite the territory’s return to Azerbaijani control following the recent Karabakh war. She said the commemoration seeks to prevent “new Khojaly, Srebrenica or Gaza” tragedies and urged the international community to reject violence based on ethnic or religious identity.
Mammadov said dozens were killed in Khojaly “for being Turkish and Muslim” and noted that despite hopes after World War II that such crimes would not recur, later atrocities in Rwanda, Cambodia and Srebrenica took place.
Referring to Azerbaijan’s military gains under President Ilham Aliyev, Mammadov said the country faces the challenge of sustaining peace in the South Caucasus while ensuring similar tragedies do not happen again. He added that pursuing peace is difficult for a nation that endured such suffering but described it as a necessity to prevent further bloodshed.
