January 20, 1990, is a decisive historical moment on the path of Azerbaijan's independence. Officially marked as the Day of National Mourning, it is also a day of national pride for the country, becoming a symbol of steadfast will in the name of national independence and freedom of our people. This epochal event marked a turning point in the restoration of national independence. It was the January tragedy that turned a national liberation movement into a political reality and gave the people of Azerbaijan a strong impetus to fight for independence.

The massacre of the civilian population of Baku on January 20 was carried out on the instructions of the Soviet government of the time to suppress the righteous protest of the people of Azerbaijan to prevent the expansion of the liberation movement in Azerbaijan and beyond. For this reason, the troops of the Soviet Union, numbering more than 20,000 people, entered Baku on the night of January 19-20, 1990, and the Soviet Army, without declaring a state of emergency, began military operations against the civilian population of Azerbaijan. A brutal massacre was carried out on the peaceful population and hundreds of people were killed, injured, and disappeared.

The roots of the January tragedy date back to 1988, when efforts by Armenia to annex Azerbaijan's former Nagorno-Karabakh region and another wave of expulsions of Azerbaijanis from their historic lands in Armenia were gaining momentum. Due to the worsening of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the national movement grew in Azerbaijan and the situation became tense. The people of Azerbaijan were irritated by the territorial claims and aggressive acts of Armenia, supported by some then-Soviet officials against Azerbaijan. Since 1988, the national freedom movement has grown. Protesting against this policy of the Soviet Union, thousands took part in demonstrations throughout the day in the central square and the streets of Baku.

But instead of preventing these rising tensions, the Soviet leadership committed a terrible crime against the Azerbaijani people. The policy of the Soviet leader Gorbachev became a detonator for the strengthening of Armenian separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh, who defended the annexation of this territory by Armenia.

As a result of the military rally, 131 people were officially killed. Unofficially, the numbers rise to at least 300 people, and possibly more. To this day, more than 30 years later, the truth is unknown, as most of the documents were confiscated and returned to Moscow by the Soviet Army when it became clear that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. 744 people were seriously injured, 4 missing, 400 arrested. After the declaration of a state of emergency, 21 more people were killed in Baku, and 26 were shot in the cities of Neftchala and Lankaran. The residents of Azerbaijan call this tragedy "Black January". Since Soviet officials have publicly stated that the purpose of the intervention of Soviet troops was to prevent the overthrow of the Soviet government of the Republic of Azerbaijan by the national movement, the punishment meted out to Baku by Soviet soldiers could have been intended as a warning to the liberation movements, not only in Azerbaijan but also in other republics.

The bloody massacre that took place in Baku in January 1990 showed the bloody anti-humanist essence of the Soviet totalitarian regime when the armed forces of the Soviet Union were once again used against the liberation movement and independence of the people. This was the Soviet Union's "reliable method" of suppressing liberation movements, applied against the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968. The punitive action of the Soviet armed forces in Baku in January 1990, its proportions, the cruelty, and the number of human victims, exceeded the events in Tbilisi, Vilnius, Riga, and so on. These were the last convulsions of the aging Soviet empire.

January 20 was the first test and the moral victory on the road that led the nation to independence, to the return of national-spiritual ideas.

"Black January" turned out to be the beginning of the end of Soviet rule in Azerbaijan and paved the way for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Despite the bloody events in Baku, this date became a page of heroism in the history of the struggle for independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

At such a truly crucial time for the republic and when Azerbaijan was still part of the Soviet Union, risking his life, the National Leader of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, gave his famous speech in Moscow, in which he called the decision of the supreme Soviet leadership to send troops to Baku, as an "inhumane, anti-democratic and unconstitutional" act and demanded that "all those involved in the tragedy be punished". Then the decision on the first political-legal assessment of the January 20 tragedy was approved by the Parliament of Azerbaijan on its initiative.

"Black January" is forever recorded in the history of the country as a day of heroic struggle in the name of freedom and territorial integrity of independent, modern, democratic, and prosperous Azerbaijan. The day that led to heavy losses and the killing of innocent people highlighted the readiness for war, and the pride of the people, who, not enduring the treacherous policy of the leadership of the Soviet Union towards Azerbaijan, raised their voices to win freedom and independence.

Going through this bloody path, Azerbaijan won its independence, but the cost was high – 20 percent of our territory was occupied as a result of Armenian aggression, which turned into active military operations.

The Soviet leadership continued to undermine the restoration of the independent and democratic state by supporting Armenia's military aggression against Azerbaijan. This support resulted in the occupation of 1/5 of the internationally recognized territories of our country. In addition, Armenia has carried out a policy of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis. As a result, more than one million Azerbaijanis found themselves in the position of refugees and internally displaced persons. These actions, without a doubt, are a massive violation of the fundamental rights of the civilian population.

Azerbaijan has always advocated a peaceful solution to this conflict. Despite nearly 30 years of negotiations mediated by the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, no results have been achieved. In recent years, Armenia has deliberately destroyed the negotiation process, threatening Azerbaijan with a new war for new territories. In September 2020, Armenia launched a large-scale military attack on Azerbaijan. Completely defeated in the forty-four-day war, Armenia was forced to withdraw the remainder of its troops from other parts of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan by signing an act of capitulation on November 10, 2020. Azerbaijan itself ensured the implementation of Security Council resolutions of the UN on the former conflict. In September last year, after a one-day anti-terror operation, Azerbaijan restored its sovereignty over all its internationally recognized territories. The so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh conflict" has entered history. This development is not only an important historical moment in the history of independent Azerbaijan but also a vital condition for lasting peace, cooperation, and good neighborly relations in the region.

Azerbaijan is trying to sign a peace agreement with Armenia based on the recognition of each other's territorial integrity, the definition and demarcation of state borders, and the opening of all communications for full cooperation in the region.

*The author is the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Albania.