BAKU SAYS CEMETERY STILL INTACT

The Moscow Times, Russia
May 17 2006

BAKU, Azerbaijan — An aide to Azerbaijan’s president on Tuesday
denied a report that a centuries-old ethnic Armenian cemetery had
been destroyed.

The report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting said the
medieval Djulfa cemetery in the exclave of Nakhichevan, which once
included thousands of intricately carved crosses, had vanished. The
report said its journalist was not allowed by accompanying security
forces to go to the cemetery site, but that the journalist was near
enough to see the cemetery was gone.

“This is an absolutely lying publication and statement,”
said Ali Khasanov, an aide to President Ilham Aliyev. “Not one
cultural-historical monument, not one Armenian cemetery in the
autonomous Nakhichevan republic has been destroyed.”

Accusations that Azerbaijan had destroyed the cemetery have raised
tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are at odds over
Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that has been under control
of Armenian and local Karabakh forces since a separatist war ended
with a shaky cease-fire in 1994. The Djulfa cemetery site is generally
off-limits because it lies in a security zone along the Iranian border.

Khasanov said the government was ready to work with international
commissions to clarify the status of cultural and historical sites.(AP)

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress