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JOINT RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING THE DAY OF GENOCIDE OF AZERBAIJANIS
WHEREAS, the internationally recognized area of the Republic of Azerbaijan is 33,440 square miles, including the Karabakh and Nakhichevan regions, but used to include Zangezur and other regions and comprised 44,016 square miles until Joseph Stalin's soviet government's interference in the 1920s; and
WHEREAS,  a series of large-scale massacres occurred in March 1918 in Baku, Shemakha, Guba, Shusha, Nakhichevan, Irevan, Urmia, Salmas, Maku, Khoy and other Azerbaijani-populated towns and hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians, as well as other Muslims and Jews, were slaughtered by the Armenian Dashnak and Bolshevik armed forces; and
WHEREAS,  this genocidal crime has been duly investigated and commemorated by the official decree of the government of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan since March 31, 1919 as the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis; and
WHEREAS,  this action marked the first-ever genuine attempt to give a political and legal assessment of the policy of genocide by any government in the world; and
WHEREAS,  the annual commemoration of the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis was suppressed after the Bolshevik takeover on April 28, 1920 and restarted only in the 1990s after the breakup of the Soviet Union and Azerbaijan's reestablishing its independence and freedom; and
WHEREAS,  in 1998, in light of all of the assaults against Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty and of the up to one million Azerbaijanis and other Turkic and Muslim civilians killed from 1813 to 1994 and due to the continued Armenian aggression, March 31st was officially designated a national observance, the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis; and
WHEREAS,  every year since 1918, Azerbaijanis and many people around the globe, including Azerbaijani-Americans and the United States Azeris Network, observe March 31st as the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis to honor the victims of the catastrophic tragedy; and
WHEREAS,  the 95th anniversary commemoration of the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis provides an opportunity to reflect on the terrible loss of life that can result from conflicts between peoples of different ethnicities, religions and political viewpoints and the enduring need to resolve disputes through dialogue and negotiation rather than bloodshed; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED: That We, the Members of the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Legislature now assembled in the First Regular Session, take this opportunity to recognize the anniversary of the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis and to urge that it be commemorated in solemn observance of those horrific events.