ARMENIA CONDEMNS DESTRUCTION OF CHRISTIAN CEMETERY IN BAKU

ARMENPRESS
Sep 18, 2007

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 18, ARMENPRESS: Vladimir Karapetian, a spokesman for
foreign ministry, said Armenia condemns the destruction of a Christian
(Narimanov) cemetery in Azerbaijan’s capital city Baku. The cemetery
had mainly Armenian and Russian graves, also of Georgians and Jews.

The authorities in Baku have ordered destruction of the cemetery under
the pretext of building a circumventing road to ease heavy traffic in
downtown Baku, but images posted on the Internet show that the graves
are being leveled by bulldozers and relatives have no opportunity to
rebury the remains of their deceased.

According to Vladimir Karapetian, this decision fits entirely
into the rationale of the policy of the official Baku designed to
completely eradicate Armenian cultural monuments in the territory of
the Azerbaijani republic, to eliminate any trace of the rich Armenian
legacy in Azerbaijan.

He said now the official Baku is encroaching on the rights of other
national minorities, particularly, Russians, who sent a letter to
president Ilham Aliyev demanding that he orders an immediate end to
this barbarism.

"We regard the destruction of the Narimanov cemetery in Baku as
continuation of the policy for destruction of the old Armenian
cemetery in Julfa in the autonomous Nakhichevan, which is to be
blamed also on international organizations, which have given in to
Azerbaijani pressure and failed to display resolution and send a
monitoring mission to Nakhichevan to assess the scale of destruction
of Armenian monuments there,’ he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress