According to Adam Schiff, in the early stages of the Karabakh movement leading up to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and days before the Sumgait pogrom, Hidayat Orujov, a leader of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, warned Armenians in Sumgait: "If you do not stop campaigning for the unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia, if you don't sober up, 100,000 Azeris from neighboring districts will break into your houses, torch your apartments, rape your women, and kill your children." This however was later denied by Orujov himself who in his interview stated that not only he had never publicly made any statements aimed at igniting inter-ethnic conflict, but also he was not present in Sumgait and was not holding any political role at the time.