e-3780 Foreign affairs
Michael Cooper
Armenia,Azerbaijan,Foreign policy
February 11, 2022, at 8:56 a.m. (EDT)
Petition to the Government of Canada
  Whereas:
  
    February 26, 2022, marks the 30 years since the massacre of 613 Azerbaijani civilians by the Armenian Army in a small mountain town of Khojali, Azerbaijan;
    International media widely reported on the Khojali Massacre in 1992, documenting the gruesome details of the extermination of Khojali’s Azerbaijani population;
    For 30 years, Armenia kept Azerbaijan’s entire Karabakh region under illegal occupation, while ethnically cleansing nearly 800,000 Azerbaijani out of their ancestral homes;
    The UN Security Council adopted four resolutions (#822, #853, #874, #884) in 1993, condemning the occupation and demanding Armenian forces’ “immediate and complete withdrawal out of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan";
    Since the massacre, Armenia has refused to acknowledge the atrocity to pave the way for peace in the region;
    Canada has been consistent in its firm support to Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and always stood for the reconciliation and peace-building between Azerbaijanis and Armenians; and
    Canada’s 100,000 Azerbaijani-speaking community has been marking the day of remembrance of the massacre for the past 30 years, awaiting an acknowledgement of this day by the Canadian government.
  
  
    We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
    1. Officially condemn the Khojali Massacre, committed by the Armed Forces of Armenia on the night of February 26, 1992, as a crime against humanity;
    2. Declare February 26 as a National Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Khojali Massacre; and
    3. Work with the Governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia to bring about the normalization of relations, demarcation and delimitation of the borders between the two countries, with the aim of supporting sustainable peace in the region.