January 24, 2006

Presentation of the booklets 'The true facts about Garabagh'

On January 24 at Heydar Aliyev Foundation presentation ceremony of 'The true facts about Garabagh' booklets collection was held.


The ceremony was opened by the President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva.


Speech by Mehriban Aliyeva:


Dear ladies and gentlemen!


Dear friends!


First of all, I greet you at Heydar Aliyev Foundation and thank you for joining us in this ceremony despite the real winter weather.


Heydar Aliyev Foundation has been functioning for more than a year. Today I want to say with big pride the Foundation is active participant of public life of our country and is an organization possessing great resonance and respect in the society as well. The reason for such high prestige gained within short time is different programs and projects developed and implemented by the Foundation, concrete works done and results gained. Education, health, social problems, sport and youth problems, protection of cultural heritage - in all these fields the Foundation has implemented concrete projects and gained successful results.


From the first day of establishment we have declared Heydar Aliyev Foundation functions for happy future of Azerbaijan, for present and happy future of Azeri people. We try to pay attention to the most vital problems of the society and do our best to solve them.


Today the biggest and painful problem of Azerbaijan is settlement of Armenia-Azerbaijan, Daghlig Garabagh conflict. This is the most important task of our country. The biggest injustice and tragedy that every nation can face thousand years ago and now is aggression and occupation of land. It is already 17 years Azerbaijani people have faced such unfairness. 20% of our lands are under occupation as a result of Armenian armed aggression. More than 20,000 people died, more than 50,000 injured and became invalid. More than 1 million people have been dismissed from their native lands for more than 10 years and live as refugee and IDP. Azerbaijanis have undergone genocide and ethnic cleansing policy by Armenians. Human rights of more than 1 million of our countrymen have been violated. Khojaly genocide that is a historical crime to the entire humanity is the hardest tragedy of history of Azerbaijan in XX century.


All these realities and true facts are the most painful problems to us and we have entered XXI century with these realities.


It was inseparable part of activity of Heydar Aliyev Foundation to deliver to the international community all these true facts, real reason and consequences of Daghlig Garabagh conflict, break information isolation, prevent false information distributed for more than 10 years by Armenian Diaspora. Heydar Aliyev used to take with himself map of Azerbaijan on every visit he paid and inform during the meetings held there the people of the realities and true facts and recommend it to every Azerbaijani.


That policy is continued today. President of Azerbaijan Mr Ilham Aliyev noted in the meeting held last year on the 60th jubilee of Azerbaijan National Sciences Academy that numerous scientific works should be created on the theme of Garabagh, books written and translated into different languages and distributed to the world. We, Heydar Aliyev Foundation keep loyalty to the ideas of our great leader and consider it our moral debt to continue this mission. The project of the series of 'The true facts about Garabagh' presented today is a step in this direction.


Ideological work demands regular, intensive work meeting the needs of the time. Taking into consideration that interest in the modern world has been reduced in the big-scale books, we preferred shorter format and this collection we have developed consists of 5 booklets. These contain very exact information on history of Garabagh, beginning of Armenia-Azerbaijan, Daghlig Garabagh conflict, damage caused to our country as a result of that, Khojaly genocide and terrorist acts committed by Armenians. This is a publication addressed to the international community and this is why it will be published on English, French, German, Arab and Russian languages. Everyone holding the booklets will be able to have information based on fair and true facts spending very less time.


The working group created by Heydar Aliyev Foundation is working at the moment on the second part of the series. It mostly will cover the historical facts belonging to Garabagh from period of Caucasian state of Albania to the era of soviet Azerbaijan. I believe that the series of 'The true facts about Garabagh' will be an important and necessary step in informing the entire world community of the realities of Azerbaijan.


Finally I express my gratitude to everyone who has trouble in this project. Thanks for attention.