Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Azerbaijan Denies Report Of Destruction Of Ethnic Armenian Cemetery

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Azerbaijan Denies Report Of Destruction Of Ethnic Armenian Cemetery

    AZERBAIJAN DENIES REPORT OF DESTRUCTION OF ETHNIC ARMENIAN CEMETERY

    AP Worldstream
    May 16, 2006

    An aide to Azerbaijan's president on Tuesday denied a report that a
    centuries-old ethnic Armenia cemetery had been destroyed.

    The report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting said the
    medieval-period Djulfa cemetery in the exclave of Nakhichevan, which
    once had thousands of intricately carved crosses, had vanished. The
    report said its journalist was not allowed by accompanying security
    forces to go to the cemetery site, but that the journalist was near
    enough to see the cemetery was gone.

    "This is an absolutely lying publication and statement," said Ali
    Hasanov, an aide to President Ilham Aliev. "Not one cultural-historical
    monument, not one Armenian cemetery in the Nakhichevan autonomous
    republic has been destroyed."

    Accusations that Azerbaijan had destroyed the cemetery have raised
    tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are at odds over
    Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that has been under control
    of Armenian and local Karabakh forces since a separatist war ended
    with a shaky cease-fire in 1994.

    The Djulfa cemetery site is generally off-limits because it lies in
    a security zone along the Iranian border.

    Hasanov said the government was ready to work with international
    commissions to clarify the status of cultural and historical sites,
    including within Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan accuses Armenians in
    the enclave and surrounding occupied territories of destroying mosques
    and Muslim cemeteries.
Working...
X