The Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi is being dismantled by Azerbaijanis
U.S. Religious Freedom Group Joins Calls for Accountability by Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan’s decision to establish a government commission to erase all Armenian traces from centuries-old churches and monuments has prompted a growing chorus of condemnations from the Holy See of Etchmiadzin, official Yerevan and Stepanakert, as well as international bodies, among them the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
One of the first steps taken by official Baku since the end of the 2020 war has been the overt destruction of Armenian churches and monuments in territories that are currently being occupied by Azerbaijan, in an effort to erase all traces of Armenian heritage—a policy started in the 1990s when Azerbaijan destroyed tens of thousands of Armenian churches, monuments and tombstones in Nakhichevan.
The plan to establish a commission was announced late last week by Azerbaijan’s culture minister, Anar Karimov, who said that Armenian churches and other monuments will be appropriated as Albanian through a group of “experts” who will be assembled to oversee this matter.
The Holy See of Etchmiadzin on Tuesday condemned Baku’s anti-Armenian advances, saying this policy goes against all norms of humanity and civilization and is a “manifestation of hostility and hate against Armenia, Artsakh and Armenian people.”
“The Holy See of Holy Etchmiadzin calls on all countries engaged in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process—first and foremost the co-chairing states of the OSCE Minsk Group—sister churches and religious institutions, international professional organizations to strictly respond to the fact of undisguised cultural genocide implemented by Azerbaijan and to stop and prevent such expressions of vandalism,” a statement from Etchmiadzin said.
Artsakh’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday stated that the establishment of such a commission is in direct violation of a ruling by the International Court of Justice, which, in December, demanded that Azerbaijan take the necessary measures to prevent all acts of vandalism committed against the Armenian cultural heritage and punish those responsible.
“We strongly condemn the decision of the Azerbaijani authorities to establish a special commission tasked with, according to subsequent statements by officials, destroying the traces of the Armenian identity of cultural and religious monuments located in the territories of Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan,” said a statement by Artsakh’s foreign ministry.
“This serves as another convincing proof of the fact that Armenian cultural monuments that have come under the control of the Azerbaijani authorities is in real danger of being completely destroyed or torn off from their historical roots,” added the foreign ministry, saying that falsifying history and perpetrating cultural genocide by Azerbaijan are an integral part of the broader anti-Armenian policy systematically pursued by Baku for several decades.
“If at the initial stage of the Azerbaijani-Karabagh conflict, manipulations with history and culture served as a justification for the deportation of the Armenian population from the former Azerbaijan SSR, now they are aimed at legitimizing the results of the illegal use of military force by Azerbaijan against Artsakh,” the Artsakh foreign ministry emphasized.
“There is a strong belief among the international community and in expert circles that the destruction of cultural monuments is an attack on the dignity of peoples, their values and ideals in order to undermine the nation’s ability to withstand historical trials and develop. By declaring war on Armenian history and culture, Azerbaijan is trying to achieve exactly this goal,” said the Artsakh foreign ministry. “The destruction of the Armenian cultural heritage is not only an attempt to deprive the people of Artsakh of their rights, including the right to culture, but also a challenge to the international community and a threat to peace and security. Over the past decades, the international community represented by the UN, in response to the increasing number of cases of deliberate destruction of cultural monuments during conflicts across the world, has developed a position according to which the destruction of cultural sites is a war crime and amounts to acts of terrorism,” explained the Artsakh foreign ministry.
Official Stepanakert also called on the international community to take decisive steps to ensure that Azerbaijan adheres to the decisions of the International Court of Justice and other international legal and human rights conventions.
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan on Tuesday condemned Azerbaijan’s official efforts at cultural destuction.
“The establishment of such a working group at the state level aimed at deliberate and illegal looting of the historical and cultural heritage of the neighboring people and depriving them of their historical memory, is unprecedented even in the history of conflicts. It once again demonstrates the fact that the cases of vandalism and destruction of the Armenian historical, cultural and religious heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh during the 44-day war and its aftermath, are deliberate and pre-planned, and are part of the policy of annihilating Nagorno-Karabakh’s indigenous Armenian population,” Hunanyan said.
“In view of the current situation, the immediate intervention and unimpeded involvement on the ground of the international community, in particular UNESCO, is becoming more urgent for the preservation and prevention of the cases of vandalism against the Armenian monuments of Artsakh, which are part of the universal cultural heritage,” added Hunanyan.
“This policy of destruction and distortion of the identity of the Armenian historical and cultural heritage and religious sanctuaries contradicts Azerbaijan’s statements on achieving reconciliation in the region, and creates serious obstacles to the establishment of lasting peace in the region,” Hunanyan said.
Joining the chorus of criticism of Baku’s most recent policy was Chair of U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Nadine Maenza who expressed concern over Azerbaijan’s plans to remove Armenian Apostolic inscriptions from churches.
“We urge the government to preserve and protect places of worship and other religious and cultural sites,” Maenza said in a social media post on Tuesday.
The Armenia-Greece Friendship Association, in a statement, also condemned Baku’s plans to erase Armenian traces from monuments, Greece’s Embassy in Yerevan said in a Facebook post.
“The Armenia-Greece Friendship Association condemns the initiative of the Azerbaijani government to set up a working group to destroy the Armenian presence from the Armenian temples in the territories occupied by Azerbaijan under the pretext that those temples belonged to the Caucasian Albanian Church,” said the statement.
The Armenia-Greece Friendship Association called on UNESCO and other international organizations to take a stand and do everything possible to prevent it.
