By Esra Tekin
ISTANBUL (AA) - Türkiye on Thursday commemorated the victims of the Khojaly Massacre, the mass killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces in 1992 in the town of Khojaly in the Karabakh region.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked the 34th anniversary of the massacre in a post on the Turkish social media platform NSosyal.
“On the 34th anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre, I commemorate our Azerbaijani brothers and sisters who were martyred with mercy and sorrow, and extend my condolences to the friendly and brotherly people of Azerbaijan,” Erdogan said.
“We will never forget this inhumane massacre, whose pain we will always feel in the deepest parts of our hearts,” he added.
“We strongly condemn the massacre perpetrated against innocent civilians on 26 February 1992 in the town of Khojaly, located in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“The atrocities committed in Khojaly remain a shameful stain on the conscience of humanity. The pain of our 613 brothers and sisters who were brutally killed, as well as those who were wounded, taken captive, and went missing, still weighs heavy on our hearts.”
It added: “We wish Allah’s mercy upon our brothers and sisters who lost their lives during the Khojaly Massacre, and extend our condolences to the people of Azerbaijan.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also commemorated the victims of Khojaly on the anniversary of the massacre in a message shared on NSosyal.
“We feel the pain of brother Azerbaijan's in the deep of our hearts,” he said, adding that Ankara stands in solidarity with Baku “all the time, in the sense of one nation and two states.”
- Khojaly Massacre
Soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenian forces took over the town of Khojaly in Karabakh on Feb. 26, 1992, after battering it with heavy artillery and tanks.
The town was the site of a two-hour Armenian offensive that killed 613 Azerbaijani civilians -- including 106 women, 63 children and 70 elderly people -- and seriously injured 487 others, according to Azerbaijani figures.
Some 150 of the 1,275 Azerbaijanis captured during the massacre remain missing to this day, with eight families completely wiped out.
The Karabakh region was the site of mass killings and burials during the First Karabakh War in the early 1990s, when Armenian forces occupied Nagorno-Karabakh -- internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan -- and seven adjacent regions, including Khojaly.
In the fall of 2020, after 44 days of fighting, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages and settlements in Karabakh from nearly 30 years of Armenian occupation.
Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh in September 2023 following an “anti-terrorist operation,” after which separatist forces in the region surrendered.
Türkiye was among the first countries to recognize the Khojaly incident as a massacre and has repeatedly called for justice for its victims.