BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9
Trend:
The heads of Azerbaijani NGOs appealed to UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay at the conference on assessing the Azerbaijani cultural heritage in Armenia, Trend reports.
“We, representatives of the public organizations, have repeatedly appealed to UNESCO to inform about the cultural genocide committed by Armenia against the heritage of the Azerbaijani people,” the petition said.
According to the petition, as a result of the purposeful policy being pursued by Armenia, the cultural heritage of Azerbaijani people in Armenia, which has a long history, will disappear.
“Along with the cultural genocide, Armenia conducted the policy of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis,” the petition said. “As a result of mass deportation of Azerbaijanis since the beginning of the 20th century, there would be no Azerbaijanis left in present-day Armenia, which was their homeland for centuries."
According to the petition, more than 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from their native lands and became refugees as a result of the 1988 deportation.
“Thus, while pursuing a policy of ethnic and cultural genocide, Armenia purposefully erases the traces of Azerbaijanis, the original inhabitants of these territories, robs, destroys, misappropriates and changes the origin of the cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people,” the petition said.
According to the petition, moreover, the ancient toponyms in these territories were replaced by the Armenian names.
“We also mentioned many exact facts in our previous appeals to UNESCO,” the petition said. “For example, along with other facts, we mentioned that the Blue Mosque, the Gala Mosque, Shah Abbas mosque, Tepebasi mosque, Zalkhan mosque, Sartib Khan mosque, Haji Novruz Ali Bey mosque, Demirbulag mosque, Haji Jafarbay mosque, Rajab-Pasha mosque, Muhammad Sartib Khan mosque, the Haji Inam Mosque and more than 300 other mosques in Armenia were deliberately destroyed or used for other purposes in early 20th century.”
According to the petition, only Demirbulag mosque continued its activity until 1988, but it has been already completely destroyed and a multi-storey building has been built in its place.
“More than 500 cemeteries of Azerbaijanis in Armenia, such as Aga Dede, Ashagi Shorja, Gullubulag, Saral, were destroyed,” the petition said. “The grave of great Azerbaijani poet Ashig Alasgar was also destroyed in his native village in ancient Goycha district.”
According to the petition, in general, Armenia deliberately destroyed thousands of monuments belonging to the Azerbaijani people on its territory.
“This is a vivid example of Armenia's intolerance towards the Azerbaijani people, it is also an insult to all mankind,” the petition said. “All this shows that Armenia does not recognize any universal values. All these illegal acts and acts of vandalism, which continue for decades, remain unpunished. The international community must understand that such steps are Armenia’s state policy and must take actions against it.”
According to the petition, for this purpose, it is necessary to use existing instruments of international law.
“Thus, the deliberate destruction, change of origin and misappropriation of monuments is the gross violation of international humanitarian law, in particular the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the UNESCO 1954 and 1970 Conventions,” the petition said.
According to the petition, these are war crimes.
“Proceeding from the UN Security Council Resolution 2347, adopted in 2017, the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage is also directed against peace and security,” the petition said. “Taking all this into account, we asked you to send an expert group to Armenia to assess the centuries-old cultural and historical heritage of the Azerbaijani people.”
According to the petition, unfortunately, Armenia opposed the visit of such a mission to keep its illegal actions under wraps.
“However, as a result of a videoconference meeting among the leaders of Azerbaijan, France, Armenia and the president of the European Council on February 4, 2022, the sides agreed that the UNESCO delegation will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the petition said. “This news inspired us and we appeal again.”
“We hope that Armenia, which promised during this meeting not to interfere with the visit of UNESCO’s delegation,” the petition said. “As a result of an objective report of this delegation, the whole world will know about the actions committed against the centuries-old heritage of the Azerbaijani people while Armenia will be held accountable for its actions.”
A list of a number of cultural heritage objects misappropriated by Armenia has been also attached to the petition.