Due to the statement made by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia during a press conference on June 27 that after the change of the route of the Goris-Stepanakert motorway passing near Aghavno village, the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) city of Berdzor and the adjacent villages of Aghavno and Nerkin Sus will come under the control of the Azerbaijani armed forces and the local Armenian residents will be evacuated, the authorities of Artsakh started the removal of Armenian cultural monuments from those settlements at the beginning of August. The Monument Watch platform noted about this in a statement.
According to the statement, as of Thursday, a total of 47 Armenian cultural monuments—including cross-stones, memorial stones, busts, and memorial fountains—have been removed from the aforesaid communities.
Unfortunately, it was technically impossible to remove in such a short time the Church of the Ascension and the Holy Martyrs' Church and the Berdzor memorial dedicated to the Artsakh Liberation War. However, it was possible to partially remove some elements of the Church of the Ascension of Berdzor.
The removal of these monuments is being actively discussed in the Azerbaijani media, and accusations are being made regarding the "looting" of the Church of the Ascension.
"If the enemy threatens to eliminate, transform, annihilate and desecrate the ‘occupier,’ if we have already witnessed many times the manifestations of the particularly barbaric policy of Azerbaijan (…) regarding new monuments, unfortunately, removal is the only way to save these monuments from desecration and destruction," the aforesaid platform added.