Armenians Should Have Unimpeded Access to Shushi Mother Cathedral, MFA Spokesperson

The spokesperson of the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vahan Hunanyan, made a statement regarding the repeated shelling of the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Mother Cathedral in Shushi by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the events.

“On October 8, 2020, during the military aggression unleashed against Artsakh and its people, the Azerbaijani armed forces launched two air strikes with ultra-precise weapons on the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Mother Cathedral in Shushi, causing significant destruction to the church. Just days after the trilateral statement of November 9, the same church was subjected to vandalism and desecration,” the statement said.

“Alongside the physical damage to the Shushi Mother Cathedral, Azerbaijan continues its attempts to distort the Armenian identity of the church through alterations to its architectural appearance under the pretext of renovation. The deliberate shelling of a place of worship is not only a condemned crime under international law, particularly under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its Second Protocol (1999), but also a symbolic revelation of intentions. It is a blatant manifestation of Azerbaijan's policy aimed at eliminating any trace of Armenian presence in the territory of Artsakh.”

“One year after the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh, the fate of approximately 1,500 historical and cultural heritage sites and places of worship, as well as thousands of museum pieces located in areas under Azerbaijani control, remains uncertain and endangered. Numerous documented cases exist of the deliberate destruction and vandalism of Armenian churches and other cultural and religious monuments by Azerbaijani armed forces. Furthermore, alongside their physical destruction, we witness the consistent falsification of historical facts and distortion of the identity of Armenian monuments by Azerbaijan.”

“In this context, it is perhaps not coincidental that Azerbaijan continues to block or severely restrict access for UNESCO's expert missions to endangered Armenian cultural heritage sites, attempting to cover up the war crimes it has committed. The atrocities directed against historical-cultural monuments and places of worship, representing the cultural and spiritual heritage of peoples, grossly violate international law, contradict universal values, and are unequivocally condemnable.”

The Shushi Mother Cathedral is one of the important centers of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Artsakh, and the clergy and followers of the Armenian Church should have unimpeded access to this holy site,” the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' statement concluded.