Thousands of Armenian historical and cultural monuments in occupied areas of Nagorno-Karabakh under threat of destruction

YEREVAN, April 27. /ARKA /. Speaking on Tuesday at a press conference in Yerevan, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Minister of Education, Science and Culture Lusine Karakhanyan said thousands of Armenian historical and cultural monuments in the territories that came under the control of Azerbaijan after the war in autumn 2020 are under threat of destruction.

Karakhanyan stressed that today Azerbaijan is pursuing an institutional policy of destruction, falsification, and substitution of the Armenian cultural heritage.

"At the moment, the fate of about 2,000 monuments and reserves located in the territories controlled by Azerbaijan is under threat. I am talking about 2,000 architectural and historical monuments, 13 monastic complexes, 122 churches, 52 fortresses, 523 khachkars (cross-stones) and 4 chapels," she specified.

Also, 127 school libraries with 617,000 books, 3 regional libraries with about 68,400 books, 10 state and 2 private museums with about 20,000 exhibits are now in the occupied territories.

"During the war, we managed to evacuate some collections and valuables, but, for example, an art gallery, a historical museum, a storehouse of the carpet museum remained in Shushi (some of the museum's exhibits were evacuated, but another 860 remained)," she said.

According to her, at the moment Azerbaijan's propaganda is based on the destruction of Armenian heritage or presenting it as Albanian.

"But I believe that we have good scientific and historical basis  that need to be properly promoted using all information platforms in order to be able to save our historical and cultural monuments," she said.

Karakhanyan recalled that on December 21 a visit of the UNESCO mission to Artsakh was planned to conduct monitoring, but Azerbaijan hindered its implementation.

On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijani armed forces, backed by Turkey and foreign mercenaries and terrorists, attacked Nagorno-Karabakh along the entire front line using rocket and artillery weapons, heavy armored vehicles, military aircraft and prohibited types of weapons such as cluster bombs and  phosphorus weapons.

After 44 days of the war, on November 9, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities. According to the document, the parties stopped at where they were at that time. The town of Shushi, the districts of Agdam, Kelbajar and Lachin were handed over to Azerbaijan, with the exception of a 5-kilometer corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenia.