False information by Azerbaijan at the OSCE Supplementary Meetings: What does evidence say?

During the discussion on “Inclusion as a way to promote tolerance and non-discrimination” held on June 2 in Vienna within the framework of the OSCE ODIHR Human Dimension Meeting III, one of the members of the Azerbaijani delegation made statements regarding the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict that do not correspond to reality.

In particular, the Azerbaijani delegate stated that according to the data of the USSR Prosecutor’s Office, “at least 226 Azerbaijanis were killed” during their emigration from Armenia in 1988-90.

This information disseminated by Azerbaijani sources is false, since the USSR Prosecutor’s Office has not officially published such statistics. 

Despite Stalin’s “repatriation program“, when, by his order, Azerbaijanis living in Armenia were offered to voluntarily move to Soviet Azerbaijan (1948-1950), Azerbaijanis nevertheless continued to live in the Armenian SSR until the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict of 1988-89, which was accompanied by human casualties (Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad, Nagorno-Karabakh). According to the 1989 census, 84,860 Azerbaijanis lived in Armenia right before the collapse of the USSR. They began leaving the territory of Armenia in 1988, during the escalation of the conflict.

In the spring of 1989, during a session of the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the republic reported on 23 Azerbaijanis killed in Armenia. However, later the Azerbaijani propaganda machine exaggerated this number, bringing it to hundreds.

Source of screenshot: “Karabakh Crisis”, authors I. Babanov, K. Voevodsky

Thus, while citing an official source, the Azerbaijani delegate mentioned an unofficial number, conveying false information to the participants of the discussion. According to official data, at a session of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan in the spring of 1989, it was reported that 23 Azerbaijanis were killed in Armenia. However, the higher figures presented later are based on unofficial sources.

The president of Azerbaijan and hate speech 

The other apparent lie by the Azerbaijani delegate during the OSCE meeting refers to the statement of the president of Azerbaijan. When members of the Armenian delegation reminded the discussion participants of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s discriminatory and hateful statement about Armenians, the Azerbaijani delegate said that it was a lie. Note that it refers to Aliyev’s statement made on October 4, 2020, when he declared, “…we are driving the Armenians away like dogs. Azerbaijani soldiers are driving them away like dogs.”

“Someone here accused the President of Azerbaijan of spreading hatred against Armenian citizens. I have to tell you that it is a lie. And this is about the president whose government initiated a reintegration program after restoring the territorial integrity, but the Armenian side chose a different path,” the Azerbaijani delegate stated.

The representative of the Azerbaijani delegation is, in fact, lying. In his nationwide address during the peak of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020, the Azerbaijani president described Armenians as dogs. On September 19, 2023, the Azerbaijani side launched an armed attack on the settlements and peaceful population of Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in the deaths of 223 people, 25 of whom were civilians. Among the victims were 5 minors.

In the conditions of military aggression and attack, the reintegration plan outlined by the Azerbaijani delegate could not possibly work, and as a result, Armenians were forcibly displaced. By the way, Freedom House emphasized in its report that Azerbaijan carried out an inhumane conquest and ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. It is stated in the report that the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had long planned to eliminate the de facto independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku launched the offensive in September after months of a blockade that had deprived the population of Nagorno-Karabakh of the sources of livelihood.

How many Azerbaijanis died during the conflict?

The same delegate stated at the Vienna meeting that during the years of the Karabakh conflict, “more than 200,000 Azerbaijanis were killed,” and most of them were civilians. And in Armenia, according to him, the number of victims reached 8 thousand, most of whom were representatives of the armed forces.

The data published by this person have no relation to reality. According to official sources, in the first stage of the Karabakh conflict, from 1988 to 1994, the number of soldiers killed on the Azerbaijani side, reached 11,557. There are also reports about 25-30 thousand victims. The number of missing persons is around 4,200. There is no exact number of civilian casualties. According to various sources, it is around 700.

During those years, the Armenian side had about 6 thousand casualties, the number of civilians killed was about 1200. 196 soldiers and 400 civilians are considered missing.

The Azerbaijani side has not published specific data on the number of casualties as a result of the wars in 2016, and in 2020, and the military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023. It is noted that the Azerbaijani side had 2,906 military casualties, 6 missing persons, and 100 civilian casualties in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Meanwhile, the Armenian side has officially reported 3,825 military casualties and 80 civilian casualties as a result of the 2020 war. As of now, 187 people are considered missing.

Thus, during the OSCE Human Dimension Meeting, in which delegates from different countries participated, a member of the Azerbaijani delegation disseminated obviously false information, distorting facts and reality.

Hasmik Hambardzumyan