UNESCO DANCING TO BAKU’S PIPE?

ArmInfo
2009-11-03 16:20:00

ArmInfo. The Azerbaijani foreign ministry is once again delivered of
its sonnet in response to ArmInfo publication with reference to the
Armenian foreign ministry that UNESCO does not send international
experts for investigation of the facts of destruction of Armenian
cultural heritage monuments in Azerbaijan’s territory because of
Baku’s objection. The official representative of the Azerbaijani
foreign ministry, Elhan Polukhov, states that "the Azerbaijani party
has received no statement from UNESCO concerning a visit to inspect
the historical monuments in the territory of Azerbaijan".

For his part, Representative of the UNESCO Information and Public
Relations Department Roni Amelan told ArmInfo correspondent that the
Azeri foreign ministry’s statements should be clarified by the Azeri
foreign ministry itself. Amelan said that he can’t comment on what is
said in Azerbaijan. UNESCO has no news on the issue of sending UNESCO
mission. This topic is being discussed in a closed regime and UNESCO
will publish the news in case of any changes in the issue, he said.

Earlier Amelan reported that the UNESCO director-general was still
waiting, as he had done for the past two years, for Armenia and
Azerbaijan to agree on the terms of reference and itinerary of
the visit of a delegation of UNESCO international experts for
investigation of the facts of destruction of cultural heritage
monuments in Nakhijevan.

Obvious signs of Baku’s amnesia regarding the procedure of UNESCO
actions are quite selective if one takes into account the regular
shuffling of versions on the issue of establishing the historical
identity of Azeri people. The claims for archaism of the their own
ethnos, which sometimes sound like nonsense, naturally do not imply
"maintenance" of memory about historical and cultural heritage of
Armenians.

All fine and dandy, but Baku started getting impudent and throwing
the switch to UNESCO. Eventually, the official representative of the
Azerbaijani foreign ministry does not realize that this does not meet
Baku’s interests as all the same UNESCO does its best to stifle and
forget everything connected with this problem. In this context, Roni
Amelan’s correspondence with his colleagues is noteworthy. Amelan’s
letter was forwarded to ArmInfo correspondent by mistake. "A dreadful
Armenian journalist who keeps cropping up despite our very discouraging
responses has written to enquire, for the 10,000th time in a couple
of years, about a UNESCO mission to Armenia and Azerbaijan",- the
letter says.

Remaining loyal to the proverb "He laughs best who laughs last", we
want to point out that we perfectly realize that we are unethical to
publish other people’s correspondence, nevertheless, our historical
memory doesn’t glitch, and we are sad for the obvious politically
motivated deal and the specific role of UNESCO which turned out
to be incompetent in practical protection of the cultural heritage
of Armenians.