\n Armenia on Tuesday accused its historic rival Azerbaijan of fomenting ethnic hatred by displaying helmets of Armenian soldiers killed during their war last year.\n<\/p>\n
\n A decades-long conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region erupted into all-out war in September, killing more than 6,000 people.\n<\/p>\n
\n Six weeks of fighting ended in November with Armenia's defeat. Yerevan ceded swathes of territories to Baku under a Russian-backed ceasefire, which was seen in Armenia as a national humiliation.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Monday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited a \"park of trophies\" showcasing military equipment seized from Armenian troops during the war.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hundreds of helmets of Armenian soldiers who had been killed were displayed in the park as well as wax mannequins of Armenian troops.\n<\/p>\n
\n The park, due to be opened to the public shortly, sparked uproar in Armenia with ombudsman Arman Tatoyan saying it was \"proof of genocidal policy\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The opening of such a 'park' clearly confirms institutional hatred towards Armenians in Azerbaijan.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n This sentiment was shared by most people in Yerevan, where mass anti-government protests have been held regularly against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's decision to agree on the humiliating truce, leading him to call snap polls in June.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This is true fascism,\" 41-year-old historian Mher Barsegyan told AFP. The park \"recalls evidence of Hitler's barbarism that is exhibited in museums around the world.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Ethnic Armenian separatists declared independence for Nagorno-Karabakh and seized control of the region in a brutal war in the 1990s that left tens of thousands dead and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Baku and Yerevan have traded accusations of war crimes after the conflict -- which had been largely dormant for decades -- re-erupted last September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Armenia on Tuesday accused its historic rival Azerbaijan of fomenting ethnic hatred by displaying helmets of Armenian soldiers killed during their war last year. A decades-long conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region erupted into all-out war in September, killing more than 6,000 people. Six weeks of fighting ended in November with Armenia's defeat. Yerevan ceded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-76006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n