"The Member States of the United States solemnly reaffirm their unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustfiable, wherever and by whomever committed, including those which jeopardise the friendly relations among States and peoples and threaten and territorial integrity and security of States";

Acts, methods and practices of terrorism constitute a grave violation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations, which may posea threat to international peace and security , jeopardise friendly relatioins among States, hinder international cooperation and aim at the distruction of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic basis of seciety”.

From the Declaration on Measures to Elimanete International Terrorism adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its forty-ninth session.

(resolution 49/60)

Together with its aggression against Azerbaijan, Armenia is actively engaged in subversive activity on Azerbaijani territory. The Armenian secret service and various Armenian terrorist organizations are systematically and deliberately perpetrating subversive and terrorist acts against peaceful citizens in Baku, Gyanja and other major population centres in the Republic of Azerbaijan, targeting industrial units and means of transport. Existing data indicate that the Armenian teiTorist organizations have substantial material and human resources at their disposal as well as ample “experience” in preparing and implementing terrorist acts.

The many facts in the possession of the law-enforcement organs of Azerbaijan provide unconditional proof of Armenia’s responsibility for the carrying out of terrorist activities against Azerbaijan and other States, its cooperation in the carrying out of such activities by various terrorist organizations and the assistance it has provided to such organizations by making its territory available to them for use as bases and training camps for the preparation and organization of terrorist acts against the States of the region. These facts thus provide sufficient grounds for including Armenia in the list of States \vhicli support terrorism at the State level.

Evidence of the special relationship of Armenia to international terrorists can be seen, for example, in the fact that the signatures of 1,227,473 nationals of that country were collected in defence of the Armenian terrorist Varujan Karapetyan, who was sentenced in France to life imprisonment for placing an explosive device near the office of the Turkish airlines at Orly airport. The sixth grade at a school in Yerevan had already been named in his honour, and in Yerevan and Ejmiatsin exhibitions of his paintings were organised. Exoressions of sympaty for terrorists by highest political leadership in Armenia have included the appeal by The president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosian, to the President of France, Jacques Chirac, for a pardon for V.Karapetyan, and the participation by the President of Armenia in the memorial service, attended by 50.000 people, for the well-known international terrorist Monte Melkonyan and his presence at the latter’s funeral in Yerevan.

INTERNATIONAL ARMENIAN TERRORISM

The use of terrorism in the campaign to implement Armenia’s annexationist plans has bloody historic antecedents. Armenian terrorist organizations began to emerge in the late nineteenth century in the form of the Institute of Violence, whose aim was the establishment of “Greater Armenia”. Armenian terrorism assumed global dimensions in the early I970s, when terrorist training bases appeared in a number of countries, the largest of them being established in the Middle East. The main activities of subversive groups from such terrorist organizations as the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), the Commandos of Justice of the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian Revolutionary Army were carried out in the countries of Western Europe and North America.

Unlike the nationalist parties Gnchak and Dashnaktsutyun, which formulated an ideological platform based on a policy of assertion of territorial claims, these organizations fall into a strictly military-terrorist category, dealing with “practical problems” in implementation of the “projects” devised by their ideologues. They are to blame for the murder of hundreds of citizens of the United States of America, Turkey, the USSR, France, Azerbaijan and other countries.

It is an established fact, for example, that the founder of the ASALA terrorist organization, Akop Akopyan. began his dismal career as a member of the terrorist group that massacred the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Gaines in 1972.

In January 1978, a terrorist group consisting of S. Zatikyan, Z. Bagdarsyan and A. Stepanyan caused and explosion in the Moscow underground railway system whose victims were innocent citizens, including women and children.

The foremost acts of Armenian international terrorism occurred in the 1980s, when ASALA was involved in the organization of a series of bomb blasts in the French capital, Paris, one of them at the city’s Orly airport. Ten people were killed and 150 injured as a result of these terrorist acts.

It is no secret that there are close ties between the Armenian secret service and other known terrorist organization responsible for killing thousands of innocent people, in particular the Kurdish Worker’s Party, militant members of which, according to the information available, are undergoing training at bases made avialable to them in the territory of Armenia.

Since the late I 980s., Armenian terrorism in the territory of the former USSR has tended to increase, particularly following Armenia’s open assertion of territorial claims on Azerbaijan and the launching of armed operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

In April 1992, Colonel Blakhotin, Commanding Officer of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasus, was shot dead at the entrance to his home in the centre of Rostov (Russian Federation). The arrested terrorists were individuals of Armenian nationality, one a resident of Yerevan, the second of Khankendi (during Soviet period - Stepanakert) and the third of Rostov. According to the authorities responsible for the murder investigation, the clues led to centres of terrorist organizations in the service of the official authorities of Armenia and their protege in Nagomo-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerhaijan.

Terrorist acts on the roads and land transport in the territory of Azerbaijan

The first entry in the tragic list of crimes by Armenian terrorists in the territory of Azerbaijan was made in 1984, when, in Baku, a passenger bus on the No.106 route was blown up, killing one women - mother of two children-and injuring several other people. Members of the Azerbaijani Special Service detained the terrorist - responsible for that callous crime, identified as an Armenian named Vartanov, who was connected with underground Armenian terrorist groups in Azerbaijan.

In early 1988, terrorism in Armenia was raised to the status of State policy and its target was the territory of Azerbaijan. Weapons and ammunition were transported on a large scale from Armenia to the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan and into the hands of underground Armenian terrorist groups in other parts of the territory of Azerbaijan. In 1988 alone, more than 100 instances of the illegal manufacture and the theft of firearms were uncovered by the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan. During the same year, Armenian terrorists carried out 32 terrorist acts in the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh, region of Azerbaijan and in districts on the frontier with Armenia, the victims of which were primarily civilians.

Terrorists cut off the roads between Azerbaijani villages, set ambushes on the main roads and on numerous occasions blew up bridges and other vital facilities, including the pipeline supplying Gyanja (Azerbaijan’s second largest city) with its drinking water.

On 7 October 1989, the road bridge across the river Halfalichai on the southern edge of the town of Khankendi, was blown up. On 29 April 1992. the perpetrator of this terrorist act - one A. Abramyan - was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Over the period from 19 January to 17 February 1990, a terrorist group based in Yerevan (Armenia’s capital) carried out numerous raids from the territory of Armenia on the intiocent inhabitants of frontier villages in the Gazakh district of Azerbaijan, resulting in the death of F. Mustafavev, inhabitant of Khirimly village, and S. Magerramov and N. Guliev, shepherds from Sofulu village. The same terrorist group carried out an attack on a patrol vehichle of the Gazakh district division of internal affairs and plotted the destruction of a railway loconiotive. Two members of the group, L. Arutyunyan and A. Mkrtchyan, detained by the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan, were sentenced to five and six years imprisonment, respectively, by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

On 18 February 1990, 13 people were injured by an explosion in an inter-city bus on the Shusha-Baku line, at the 105 km. marker on the Yevlakh-Lachin road.

On 4 March 1990, Armenian terrorists blew up the Nabiyar-Shusha pipeline, which supplied the town of Shusha with its drinking water.

On 11 July 1990, between the settlements of Getavan and Charektar in the Agdere district of Azerbaijan, an armed assault was launched on a road convoy, travelling under troop escort and conveying people and goods to the town of Kelbajar. In that terrorist act, three people were killed and 23 injured. On 19 June 1992, the individual identified during the investigation as the perpetrator of this crime, one A. Airiyan, was sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan to death by firing squad.

On 10 August 1990, in the Khanlar district of Azerbaijan, Armenian terrorists blew up an inter-city bus operating on the Tbilisi-Agdam route, killing 20 passengers and injuring 30. The perpetrators of that terrorist act were arrested before they were able to carry out their plan to blow up, on 17 June 1991, a bus on the Agdam-Tbilisi route. The Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan found A. Avanesyan and M. Tatevosyan guilty of those crimes and sentenced them to, respectively, death by firing squad and 15 years imprisonment.

On the instruction of his leaders, M. Grigoryan, a member of the terrorist organization Yergraparkh, based in the territory of Armenia, set up a terrorist group composed of inhabitants of the Echmiadzin district of Armenia, which, in November 1990, was sent into the territory of Azerbaijan. This group was disarmed by the law enforcement, agencies of Azerbaijan while attempting to carry out acts of terrorism and sabotage. By its decision of 18 June 1991, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan handed down the following prison sentences on the members of the group: T.Khachatryan - nine years, Z.Oganyan - eight years and A. Grigoryan - seven years.

On 9 January 1991, at the 5 km. marker on the Lachin-Shusha road in the area of Galadarasi village, Armenia terrorists fired on a UAZ-469 vehicle belonging to military unit 44688 of the city of Gyanja, killing the driver. Sergeant I. Goek, the commander of the reconnaissance battalion. Lieutenant Colonel A. Larionov, the chief of staff in the commandant’s office of military unit 3505 (the command centre for the special units of the interior forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR), Major I. Ivanov, and a journalist from the newspaper “Molodezh Azerbaidzhana” - Ms. S. Askerova,born 1969. who left an orphaned infant son. On 23 March 1993, the perpetrators of this crime - A. Mkrtchyan, G.Petrosvan, A.Mangasaryan. G. Arutyunyan and G.Arustamyan, who, in addition to the case in question , had been responsible for other acts of terrorism and murders - were sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan to death by firing squad, and other members of the terrorist group to prison sentences of varying lengths.

The law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan detained and disarmed two members of the Armenia-based terrorist organization Urartu. A. Tatevosyan and V. Petrosvan. who, on 2 August 1991, had carried out an armed attack on inhabitants of the Kelhajar district of Azerbaijan. The terrorists in question were sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan to ten and eight years imprisonment, respectively.

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