Feb. 26 marked the 28th anniversary of the heinous war crime against humanity perpetrated by the Armenian armed forces in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. On Feb. 25-26, 1992, Armenian armed forces, with the support of the 366th motorized rifle regiment of the Russian army, stormed the besieged town of Khojaly and killed all of its remaining Azerbaijani population. By the morning hours of Feb. 26, 613 bodies of Azerbajiani, Ahiska Turks and Kurds lay lifeless, bullet-ridden, mutilated; among them 106 women, 83 children and 79 elderly. Many more went missing and fell into captivity, never to be heard from again.

Several countries as well as more than two dozen U.S. states, including Maine, have passed legislative resolutions and issued gubernatorial proclamations commemorating the Khojaly Massacre in 2010-2018. Many members of Congress have submitted statements for the Congressional Record in the past decade.

Please join me and my family in commemorating the Khojaly Massacre and condemning the perpetrators of this war crime. Our government must stand with its strategic ally Azerbaijan and exert pressure on the Kremlin’s proxy Armenia to force it to comply with international law and withdraw from occupied Azerbaijani territories, and apologize for the Khojaly massacre.

Urfan Nadirov

Portland