On January 8, the Initiative Group of the Azerbaijani Parliament on the “Return to Western Azerbaijan” (this designation is used in Azerbaijan to refer to the area of ethnic Azerbaijanis living in the territory of modern Armenia) issued a statement condemning a recently circulated video of a 1993 speech by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the former Armenian President, accusing Armenia of “systematic ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis.”

In the video, recorded during a meeting of the "Yerkrapah" Volunteer Union, Ter-Petrosyan stated, "Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh resolved a 600-year-old problem by completely cleansing the territory of foreigners [referring to Azerbaijanis]. If there were still 180,000 representatives of other nationalities in Armenia today, as there were in 1988, we would not have our state." He further claimed that retaining regions like Zangezur would have been impossible without such measures.

The Western Azerbaijan Community, referring to Armenia's current territory, criticized the speech as evidence of deeply rooted hostility and policies targeting Azerbaijanis. According to the Initiative Group, the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia began in 1987, initiated by Armenia, causing severe suffering to the Azerbaijani people. The group highlighted that over one million Azerbaijanis were forcibly displaced due to Armenia's aggressive policies and systematic ethnic cleansing.

The statement further alleged that these crimes stemmed from institutionalized racism in Armenia's political system, resulting in the destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage, plundering of natural resources, and contamination of lands with mines in both Armenia and Azerbaijani territories under occupation for three decades. It also emphasized that such actions could only arise from ideologies of racial hatred, radical nationalism, and violent extremism.

The Initiative Group cited Ter-Petrosyan’s 1993 speech as proof of state-organized crimes, stating, "Ter-Petrosyan's statement, who was president at the time, unequivocally proves that Armenia, as a state, bears responsibility for all these crimes and that all these crimes were systematic and organized in nature." The group also noted that Armenia continues these policies regardless of leadership changes and called on the international community to condemn Armenia's systematic racism and ethnic cleansing at the state level.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev also described Levon Ter-Petrosyan's remarks as "fascist" in an interview with local media. "Look at the racist and fascist statements of the first president of Armenia - they are as ugly as they are dangerous. He presents ethnic cleansing as something to be proud of, boasting about the expulsion of Azerbaijanis from their historical ancestral lands. This video has recently surfaced. But of course it was already known in Armenia. Armenia's allies and supporters also knew about it and shared these views," Aliyev said.