A report on refugees was made at the PACE meeting, which was followed by a "special" opinion of a delegate from Azerbaijan, who distorted facts, Naira Zohrabyan, member of the Armenian delegation to PACE told reporters. According to her, in response to the opinion voiced by the Azerbaijani delegation that Baku allegedly has a million refugees, the Armenian delegation insisted, it is not true, besides the majority of refugees from Yerevan received appropriate compensation in contrary to Armenian refugees. Armenian delegation to PACE presented materials on Baku pogroms to all delegates of the Assembly. "Usual Genocide: Baku, January 1990" and "Vandals of the 21st century'' films were among the materials submitted. "I personally handed the materials to the Azerbaijani delegation," Zohrabyan said.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an intergovernmental treaty. The Assembly is one of the two statutory organs of the Council of Europe, which is composed of the Committee of Ministers (the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, meeting usually at the level of their deputies) and the Assembly representing the political forces (majority and opposition) in its member states.
In January 1990, Azerbaijani authorities instigated the Armenian pogroms in Baku. Some 400 Armenians were killed and 200 thousand were exiled in the period of January 13-19. The exact number of those killed was never determined, as no investigation was carried out into the crimes.
On January 13, a crowd numbering 50 thousand people divided into groups and started “cleaning” the city of Armenians. On January 17, the European Parliament called on EU Council of Foreign Ministers and European Council to protect Armenians and render assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On January 18, a group of U.S. Senators sent a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev to express concerns over the violence against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan and called for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.
