Baku, Azerbaijan, July 23
By Elchin Mehdiyev – Trend:
The Armenian armed forces destroyed numerous cultural monuments and mosques in the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, said Mubariz Gurbanli, Chairman of State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations, Trend reports.
Recalling that today marks 26 years since the occupation of Azerbaijan’s Aghdam district by Armenia, Gurbanli said that the Armenian armed forces laid waste to all the mosques and monuments in Aghdam.
“We have information that Armenians destroyed 17 mosques in Aghdam,” he added.
Armenian invaders occupied most of the territory of Aghdam district on July 23, 1993, seizing around 882 sq km of 1,094 sq km territory of Aghdam, one city and 80 villages.
More than 6,000 people died during the battles in Aghdam, while 128,000 people became internally displaced persons after the occupation, including 17,000 elderly.
The district’s occupation inflicted $6.179 billion of financial damage to Azerbaijan. The damage inflicted to the region’s agriculture alone is estimated at 992.8 million manats.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.