MR. OSKANIAN TOUCHES UPON ISSUE OF JUGHA CROSS STONES
By Aghavni Harutyunian

AZG Armenian Daily
21/12/2006

Recently, the first year of destruction of the cross stones of the
middle age Jugha Armenian graveyard in Nakhijevan accomplished. This
week, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev is going to participate in the
opening ceremony of the monument to his father, former president of
Azerbaijan, in Nakhijevan. In response to our question what steps RA
Foreign Ministry plans to take in this direction, Oskanian said that
the issue of condemning the destruction of the Jugha cross stones
will be included in the agenda of RA Foreign Policy. He stated that
they have already prepared the first exhibition that depicts the
ruins of Jugha cross stones which is currently on in Strasbourg. It
is planned that the exhibition will launch in many capital cities of
the world. "This issue also concerns Karabakh conflict, the safety
of our people and the aspect of mutual trust. Without paying proper
attention to this issue, without any concrete accusations, we will have
additional complications in the Nagorno Karabakh process," he said.

Mr. Oskanian informed that large-scale background works are being
carried out directed to condemnation of this crime. He said he is
constantly touching upon this issue in the course of his meetings. "We
will keep insisting on our position, without making parallels between
historical monuments in Karabakh and in the neighboring regions. We
demand that the international organizations send their monitoring
missions to Nakhijevan," Mr. Oskanian said. At present the biggest
obstacle is that Azerbaijan conditions allocating entry permissions
to the international monitoring missions with their similar visits
to Nagorno Karabakh and its neighboring territories. "In this
case, one can’t make parallels. On one hand, there was a war and
some destructions took place there. But the destructions weren’t
deliberately carried out. As for Jugha, there had been no gunshot.

Azerbaijan merely carried out a destructive policy," he underscored.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress