Famous Russian historian and political analyst Oleg Kuznetsov talked to Axar.az about his petition for recognition of Khojaly disaster as a genocide crime by Russian State Duma:

– Where did the idea of creating petition come from?

– Idea was created by “Support to Khojaly” campaign which was established by Heydar Aliyev foundation long time ago. My attempt continued for a long time in social media by my own posts and support of Azerbaijani media. But some weeks ago I gained influential and active companions like chairman of Regional issues department of Milli Majlis Arif Rahimzade and his adviser Gunay Akperova. I had noticeable increase in my petition with the help these people. As it said in sports, this second breathe promises real perspectives like strong organization fundament. I don’t want to reveal all of my cards, but number of signatures in my petition will show serious increase in near future.

– How is petition going? Are there any news?

– Main news is I have translated petition into English and Azerbaijani by advices of my friends to expand the audience. We should note that it gave its effect. Point is, people can add their comments under their electronic signature in petition. I would like to note 2 tendencies about that: First one is number of comments increased from 380 to 560 within a week, second one is majority of comments are written in Azerbaijani and English. I have told several times that collecting signatures for petition is not only hard and burdensome, but also illogical for human. There might be some days when 20-30 people sign petition and sometimes hundreds, thousands. That’s why best sentence I can use here is “works are continuing with changing success”. But now I would like to drive attention to the word “success”. Recently I wanted to declare that our petition got its 15000th signature. It is a great record for the petition which is created in Russian but defends interests of Azerbaijanis. But, unfortunately it is record for Azerbaijan. It is not enough to succeed in Russia.

– Mr.Kuznetsov, which kind of successes for recognition of Khojaly genocide can be reached after getting enough signatures?

– Signature collection is not the work which serves own interests or done for care. It will directly serve the interest of Azerbaijani people after getting enough votes. Number of signatures should be at least 4 million for recognition in Russia. Actually number of signatures for recognition of the genocide can be less for the parliament. Petition with high number of signatures is strong argument for Russian media to talk about crimes of Armenians. Today creating such campaign brings question to the minds of opponents “Who needs it?” If we can get at least 4 million signatures from all over the world we can give them concrete answer like ”The people who has signed it”. Personally I think this petition can be weapon to destroy the information walls of Russian media which hide Khojaly genocide.

– Have you faced any threat after establishing this petition?

– Interestingly no. Although my other initiatives were chased by Armenian media and Armenian media in Russia, this one did not cause trouble. But it is not surprising. Because whole world – even Armenians themselves understand that Khojaly genocide is a crime against humanity. But some political and other conditions do not let to tell this obvious fact. That’s why they are waiting if I will break my neck in this work or attract millions to this. I already have companions. I am sure that we will change a lot of things in the future with the help of Azerbaijani media also.

Petition is HERE.