Western Azerbaijan Community’s letter to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay circulated as an UN official document
20 May 2023, 09:06

The United Nations (UN) secretariat has circulated a letter of the Western Azerbaijan Community to the UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay as an official document of the UN Security Council, General Assembly and Economic and Social Council, Ulviyya Zulfikar, the Community spokesperson has said. The spokesperson noted that the appeal signed by the leadership of the Community, intellectuals, figures of culture and art, poets and writers from Western Azerbaijan has been circulated in all the UN official languages (English, French, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Spanish) as part of the agenda of the said bodies under the clauses of conflict prevention, peace building, protection of refugee rights, elimination of racial discrimination, promotion of human rights, prevention of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

The spokesperson for the Community said the distribution of the appeal as an official document of the UN was a step that would play an important part in bringing the issue of our cultural heritage destroyed in Western Azerbaijan to the international agenda.

“The circulation of this document means that the UN member states will get more detailed information about Azerbaijani heritage that was destroyed in the territory of Armenia or presented as belonging to other countries. The protection of cultural rights, i.e. creativity with all its diversity, provision of conditions for their exercise, development, accessibility and preservation are an integral part of our fundamental rights,” Ulviyya Zulfikar emphasized.

In the mentioned appeal, members of the Community expressed their deep concern over the destruction of the Azerbaijani cultural heritage in Armenia, reiterated the previous appeals of the Azerbaijani community to UNESCO and once again asked it to send a fact-finding mission to monitor the state of Azerbaijani cultural heritage in Armenia. This is the third official document of the Western Azerbaijan Community distributed in the UN. The Community's appeal to the international community was published as an official document of the UN in January this year and the Concept of Return was circulated in March.