BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 24. Deportation of Western Azerbaijanis is a big injustice, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on December 24 at a meeting with intellectuals from Western Azerbaijan, Trend reports.
"We all know very well that our people were subjected to yet another act of deportation in 1948-1953. This was yet another crime committed by the Soviet government against Western Azerbaijanis and the people of Azerbaijan as a whole. It was also a great injustice and dishonesty because World War Two had ended only three years ago. The people of Azerbaijan had shown tremendous sacrifice. A total of 300,000 people from Soviet Azerbaijan alone were killed in the war. Tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis who lived in Soviet Armenia at the time were also killed in the war. Azerbaijan played an exceptional role in the victory over fascism in World War Two. If it hadn’t been for Azerbaijani oil, the Soviet state could never have won the war. Everyone knows that. These figures have been voiced a number of times. About 70, 80 or 90 percent of gasoline, lubricants and oil were supplied from Azerbaijan. Despite all this, the perpetration of yet another crime against our people was, let me say this again, a great act of dishonesty. Our people were subjected to further deportation under a false pretext," President Ilham Aliyev said.