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BAKU: Armenian FM Accuses Azerbaijan At UNESCO

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  • BAKU: Armenian FM Accuses Azerbaijan At UNESCO

    ARMENIAN FM ACCUSES AZERBAIJAN AT UNESCO

    AssA-Irada
    October 8, 2009 Thursday
    Azerbaijan

    Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian has leveled accusations
    against Azerbaijan at a UNESCO conference, claiming the South Caucasus
    neighbor is consistently destroying Armenian cultural heritage,
    his press-service said. One of the examples of this is the complete
    wiping-out of the Jugi cemetery in Nakhchivan [Azerbaijans Nakhchivan
    Autonomous Republic] with its unique fine hachkars dating back to the
    9-16th centuries, which testified to the skills and talent of the Jugi
    craftsmen. Nalbandian pointed out that no war was being waged in 1998
    and 2005 -- recalling the hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia
    that ended with a cease-fire in 1994 -- when these giant monuments
    were demolished, loaded onto railway carriages and eliminated under
    the watchful eye of the Armenian government.

    According to Nalbandian, in 2005, the huge cultural monument was
    leveled by bulldozers and turned into a military school as a result
    of the actions taken on the authorities orders. Neither was there a
    war in 1975 when a 7th-century Armenian church was fully destroyed
    in the center of Nakhchivan with the sole purpose of eliminating the
    traces of the Armenians, who accounted for a majority in Nakhchivan
    several decades ago, Nalbandian claimed. The conflict between the two
    South Caucasus republics reared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's
    territorial claims. Armenia has been occupying over 20 percent of
    Azerbaijan's internationally-recognized territory since the early
    1990s. According to the Hague Convention, in case of occupation of one
    countrys territory by another, the destruction of material and cultural
    heritage there is unacceptable. However, Armenia has destroyed a huge
    number of Azerbaijani historical and cultural monuments in the occupied
    land in the past years. The Azerbaijani government has appealed,
    at different times, to UNESCO, the OSCE and UN offices in Baku over
    Armenian vandalism. Though a visit by an OSCE monitoring mission to
    the territories under occupation, as well as Armenia and Nakhchivan,
    had been planned several years ago, it was later postponed after
    Armenian protests. Yerevan insisted that the monitoring be carried out
    only to examine the plight of hachkars in Nakhchivan. The monuments
    that are presented as Armenian hachkars actually belong to Caucasus
    Albania and have not been destroyed. Armenians are trying to reinforce
    their territorial claims to Nakhchivan by inscribing the monuments to
    themselves. According to researchers, Armenians began moving to the
    South Caucasus after Russia and Iran signed the Turkmenchay Treaty
    in 1828, and their link to the ancient Alban khachkars is out of
    the question.
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