26th February marks the anniversary of the fall of Khojaly during the First Karabakh War in 1992, resulting in what remains the largest single massacre of this conflict, writes Tale Heydarov.
According to official figures, 613 civilians were killed, including 106 women, 63 children, and 70 elderly people. Hundreds were injured, more than a thousand were taken hostage, and some individuals remain missing. The events of that night became a defining moment in Azerbaijan’s modern history and have shaped national memory ever since.
For nearly three decades, Khojaly has stood as a symbol of loss and grievance within Azerbaijani society. It reinforced a determination to restore territorial integrity and influenced how the country understood both security and sovereignty. As a result, when the Second Karabakh War began in 2020, the legacy of the early 1990s remained central to public discourse and political decision-making.
The 2020 war was a war of liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani lands. During the conflict, civilian structures in the city of Gandja, Azerbaijan, were deliberately targeted by the Armenian military. Given the memory of Khojaly and the depth of public grievance, there was clear potential for the conflict to take on a retaliatory character. Regardless of the provocations, Azerbaijan chose not to engage in a policy of targeting Armenian civilians as retribution for the historical events surrounding Khojaly, the occupation, and the forced displacement of close to a million Azerbaijanis from their homeland.
The importance of that choice became clearer in August 2025 in Washington, where President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, with the mediation of President Donald Trump, initiated an agreement and signed a Joint Declaration on Future Relations. This committed both sides to continue working toward a comprehensive peace treaty consistent with the UN Charter.
While this breakthrough remains a framework rather than a finalised settlement, the opportunity for such an agreement arguably would not have existed had the 2020 war produced large-scale civilian reprisals. The ability to engage in negotiation was influenced, in part, by the choice made by the Azerbaijani side to refrain from targeting civilians.
The connection between Khojaly and the 2025 declaration is therefore substantive rather than symbolic. History offers clear examples of how attacks on civilians complicate or delay peace efforts. In the Balkans during the 1990s, atrocities such as the Srebrenica massacre deepened mistrust and made post-war reconciliation far more difficult. In parts of the Middle East, cycles of civilian targeting have limited the credibility of diplomatic initiatives. In each case, violence against non-combatants prolonged instability.
The experience of Armenia and Azerbaijan demonstrates a different trajectory. The memory of Khojaly remains central to Azerbaijani identity, yet the conduct of operations in Karabakh in 2020 reflected a decision not to reproduce the dynamics of the early 1990s. That decision contributed to an environment in which a structured peace process, however fragile and incomplete, could move forward.
The broader lesson extends beyond the South Caucasus. Perhaps, in the eyes of some actors, targeting civilians may yield short-term military or political gains, but it ultimately undermines the foundations required for durable peace. Restraint, even in the presence of historical grievance, preserves the possibility of negotiation and international support. The evolving Armenia–Azerbaijan peace framework illustrates how post-conflict diplomacy becomes viable only when new atrocities are avoided.
On the 34th anniversary of Khojaly, remembrance and policy remain closely linked. The events of 1992 continue to shape national consciousness, yet the developments of 2020 and the 2025 declaration show that the trajectory of a conflict is not predetermined by its darkest moments. For regions currently trapped in cycles of retaliation, the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan demonstrates a practical reality that civilian protection is not only a humanitarian imperative but also a strategic prerequisite for peace.
