By Ayya Lmahamad
Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has said that Azerbaijan in its efforts of post-conflict rehabilitation is looking forward to cooperation with UNESCO, the Foreign Ministry has reported.
He made the remarks speaking at the General Policy Debates of the 41st Session of the General Conference of UNESCO on November 10.
He noted that since the end of the conflict, Azerbaijan and UNESCO have been actively engaged in dialogue with a view of dispatching a technical mission to the liberated lands.
“The two sides have agreed on several complex technical, legal, and political aspects of the mission, which will ensure its effectiveness and independence,” he said.
Noting that the results of the Armenian occupation were devastation, the minister underlined that Armenia has pursued a systematic policy to destroy, pillage, and misappropriate Azerbaijan’s cultural heritage.
Bayramov stressed that during the occupation period, hundreds of cultural properties have been deliberately and completely destroyed, damaged, looted, and subjected to alteration with a view to changing their historical and cultural character.
He stated that out of 67 mosques, 65 had been razed to the ground and the remaining two were desecrated and used as stables for pigs and cows in total disrespect to the Muslim world. Bayramov added that thousands of museum artifacts had been illegally exported to Armenia.
“By all these actions, Armenia pursued far-reaching targets of removing any sign heralding their Azerbaijani origin, as an example of cultural genocide. Armenia also refuses to share the maps of the minefields, deliberately preventing the return of IDPs to the liberated territories,” he said.
“It also constitutes a gross violation of international law, including UNESCO instruments, such as the 1954 Hague Convention and its Two Protocols, as well as the 1970 Convention,” the minister added.
The minister recalled that in various communications, Azerbaijan has alerted UNESCO of these gross violations and illegal activities committed by Armenia and requested the need to dispatch a technical mission to the occupied territories through the past 30 years.
“Unfortunately, each time Armenia prevented the dispatch of this mission, which was acknowledged by UNESCO in its 2005 report,” he said.
Bayramov said that Azerbaijan has already initiated practical steps aiming at eliminating the consequences of decades-long occupation followed by massive destruction.
“At the highest-level Azerbaijan declared its determination that all cultural and religious monuments on the liberated territories regardless of their origin will be duly preserved and restored,” Bayramov said.
He added that Azerbaijan will continue to build upon these ideas and values and guarantee all the rights for all its citizens, irrespective of their ethnic or religious affiliation.
Emphasizing that the assessment of the unprecedented damage inflicted upon the country’s cultural heritage is a priority for the government, the minister also stressed the readiness to host an independent technical mission as soon as possible.
“Unfortunately, Armenia is trying to block and politicize the mission, which is detrimental to its successful accomplishment. Armenia must refrain from interfering in this process and cease exploiting this Organization for its own political purposes,” he said.