Opposition MPs Address UNESCO Director General on Artsakh Cultural Heritage

Members of the "Armenia" parliamentary faction, Lilit Galstyan and Elinar Vardanyan, have sent a letter to UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay regarding Azerbaijan's policy of vandalism and destruction of Artsakh's cultural heritage.

In their letter, they state, "Dear Madam Director General, alongside the human losses during the 44-day war, we have also suffered tremendous cultural losses. A vast cultural heritage remains in the territories occupied by Azerbaijan, against which Azerbaijan has adopted an open policy of destruction. In addition to desecration and vandalism, Azerbaijan is also engaging in scientific forgery. On February 3, 2022, it became known through Azerbaijani and international news sources that a working group was established by the Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan, Anar Karimov, which is preparing to remove Armenian inscriptions from the 'Albanian architectural monuments' in the currently occupied territories of the Republic of Artsakh. Such actions by the Azerbaijani authorities have one goal: to eliminate the Armenian historical and cultural heritage present in the occupied territories of the Republic of Artsakh.

It is important to emphasize that Azerbaijani authorities have previously destroyed values of great significance to Armenian cultural heritage. Specifically, during peacetime in 2002 and 2005, the authorities destroyed the Armenian cemetery in the city of Julfa, Nakhchivan, where thousands of valuable khachkars (cross-stones) were located. The khachkars were destroyed and later used as construction material.

The International Court of Justice of the United Nations, in its interim measures decision of December 7, 2021, in the case of Armenia against Azerbaijan, obligated Azerbaijan to "take all necessary measures to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration that have been committed against Armenian cultural heritage, including churches and other places of worship, monuments, natural sites, cemeteries, and other artifacts." Concerns have also been raised regarding Azerbaijan’s efforts to present Armenian cultural heritage as Albanian.

The acts of vandalism and desecration by the Azerbaijani authorities toward Armenian cultural values are ongoing, thus grossly violating the requirements of the aforementioned decision by the International Court of Justice. The Azerbaijani government continuously pursues a policy of ethnic cleansing and the destruction of cultural values, which poses serious threats to the population of Armenia and Artsakh.

Considering the current situation, we expect the active intervention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) regarding the protection of Armenian historical and culturally significant values in the areas of the Republic of Artsakh occupied by the Azerbaijani government, which are also part of the universal cultural heritage.

We emphasize that according to Article 23 of the 1954 Hague Convention, UNESCO has a crucial commitment to rapidly conduct an independent technical mission to the areas of the Republic of Artsakh that have come under Azerbaijani control as a result of the war and to carry out a fact-finding mission to assess the current state of the cultural heritage.

Sincerely,
Members of the Standing Committee on Education, Science, and Culture of the National Assembly of Armenia,
Lilit Galstyan, Elinar Vardanyan.