How Many Azerbaijanis Lived in Nagorno-Karabakh? Artsakh Prime Minister Responds to Aliyev's False Claims

The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, during a visit to the occupied city of Shushi, made several false statements, claiming that during Soviet times, Azerbaijanis constituted the majority of the population in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. However, the reality contradicts this statement. Artsakh's Prime Minister Artak Beglaryan addressed these claims.

He presented demographic data collected over the past 100 years, indicating that:

1. In 1921, when Nagorno-Karabakh was annexed, the Azerbaijani population comprised only 4% according to Soviet census data:
• 1926 - 10.06%
• 1939 - 9.32%
• 1959 - 13.80%
• 1970 - 18.08%
• 1979 - 22.98%
• 1989 - 21.52%
2. Naturally, the remaining population was predominantly Armenian with a very small percentage of foreigners.
3. Moreover, these figures were compiled by the Soviet authorities in Azerbaijan themselves (including by Ilham Aliyev's father), and therefore are significantly inflated.
4. The steady increase in the number of Azerbaijanis in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast during the Soviet era was the result of a systematic genocide against the indigenous Armenian population.
5. Azerbaijani authorities should always remember that for three thousand years, Artsakh has had an overwhelmingly Armenian majority.