RF HOUSE COMMISSION CONDEMNED ACTS OF VANDALISM COMMITTED BY AZERBAIJAN

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
May 19 2006

May 17, 2006 a sitting of the Russian Federation House Commission
for Cultural and Spiritual Heritage was held under the chairmanship
of Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borov. The issue “About
Appeal of the Moscow Round Table Participants: Armenian Cultural
Monuments of Nakhijevan – Object of Azerbaijan’s Vandalism” was
discussed during the sitting. According to the information DE FACTO
Information-Analytics Agency received at the “Yerkramas” newspaper of
the Armenians in Russia, the report made by the “Armenian Friendship
and Cooperation Association” President Victor Krivopuskov ran in
December 2005 Azerbaijan had committed an act of vandalism on the final
destruction of an ancient Armenian cemetery having 4 000 khachkars
(cross stones) – medieval monuments of the Christian architecture –
in the populated locality of Old Jugha. Then it was mentioned that
during the years Nakhijevan was within Azerbaijan 27 000 centers of
the Armenian cultural heritage of VII – XIX centuries were destroyed,
including churches, monasteries, khachkars of historical and cultural
value common to all mankind. “Actually, the policy of destruction of
the ethnical evidence of Nakhijevan’s belonging to Armenia is pursued
at the state level in Azerbaijan”.

While addressing the audience, a historian and film director Kim
Bakshi, a writer, member of the Union of Writers of Russia Supreme
Creative Council Valentin Osipov, the President of the International
Academy of Spiritual Unity Among the Peoples of the World Georgy
Trapeznikov, “Russian-Armenian Commonwealth” organization President
Yuri Navoyan not only mentioned numerous facts of destruction of
the ancient Armenian monuments in Azerbaijan, but referred to the
fact that Azerbaijan had recently implemented the state policy of
falsification of the Russian and Armenian history, disoriented and
misled its own nation and the world community, which affected Russia’s
interests, its interstate relations with Azerbaijan and Armenia and
had an adverse effect on the establishment of trust and development
of friendship between the nations.

Metropolitan Kliment stated the Armenian historical and cultural
monuments destroyed by the Azeris had been the property of the modern
world civilization and added their destruction had entailed irreparable
loss for the world cultural and historical heritage.

The House Commission unanimously condemned Azerbaijan’s acts of
vandalism against the monuments of the Armenian spiritual culture
in Old Jugha and stated it intended to study the present state and
maintenance of the cultural and spiritual heritage of other nations
by Azerbaijan together with the concerned commissions on tolerance
and freedom of consciousness, culture, globalization and national
development strategy, the international cooperation and public
diplomacy.