Armenian National Committee of America
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PRESS RELEASE
March 8, 2006
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918
STATE DEPARTMENT ENDS THREE-MONTH OFFICIAL SILENCE
ON AZERBAIJAN’S DESTRUCTION OF HISTORIC DJULFA CEMETERY
— Visiting U.S. Official Describes Desecration
of 1300 year old burial grounds as a “Tragedy;”
Calls on the Guilty to be Punished
WASHINGTON, DC – In the wake of a sustained international outcry,
growing Congressional protests, and a forceful condemnation by the
European Parliament, the U.S. State Department yesterday ended its
three-month long silence on the Azerbaijani government’s
destruction of the medieval Armenian cemetery in the Djulfa region
of Nakhichevan.
Speaking yesterday at a press conference in Yerevan, Armenia,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza responded to
reporters’ questions by describing the destruction as a “tragedy,”
and noting that, “it’s awful what happened in Djulfa. But the
United States cannot take steps to stop it as it is happening on
foreign soil. We continually raise this issue at meetings with
Azeri officials. We are hopeful that the guilty will justly be
punished. We are hopeful that in no other state of the region such
things will happen again, as there are great historic monuments in
the Caucasus and, frankly speaking, in all three states they are
endangered.”
“We welcome the end to the State Department’s long silence on
Djulfa, but regret that it took three months and sustained
international protest before our government summoned the will to
utter its first public condemnation of a clear cut and thoroughly
documented case of cultural desecration,” said ANCA Executive
Director Aram Hamparian.
In December of 2005, approximately 200 Azerbaijani forces were
videotaped using sledgehammers to demolish the Armenian cemetery in
Djulfa, a sacred site of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The
cemetery dates back to the 7th Century and once was home to as many
as 10,000 khatchkars (stone-crosses). An on-line video of the
destruction can be viewed at:
4.htm
The ANCA has widely distributed DVDs documenting the destruction,
educated Congressional offices about this desecration, and worked
in concert with ANCA affiliates around the world to protest
Azerbaijan’s worsening anti-Armenian behavior. The Congressional
Armenian Caucus, led by Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Joe Knollenberg
(R-MI), has formally condemned Azerbaijan’s actions, as have
Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Congresswoman Grace Napolitano
(D-CA). On February 16, 2006, the European Parliament adopted a
resolution condemning Azerbaijan’s destruction of the cemetery and
demanding that Azerbaijan allow an European Parliament delegation
to survey the site.
On February 28th, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian met with
UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura. During the meeting, the
Foreign Minister called attention to the destruction of the Djulfa
cemetery and urged UNESCO to send a team of experts to assess the
situation and take appropriate action.
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