UNESCO responds to Western Azerbaijan Community’s appeal
23 May 2023, 09:55

As reported earlier, the Western Azerbaijan Community sent an appeal to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on March 27, 2023, drawing attention to the facts of extensive destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage in the territory of the present-day Armenia and requesting the sending of a fact-finding mission to Armenia to assess the situation in this area.

The community has thereafter been in constant contact with relevant foreign countries, international and regional organizations to attract attention to this issue and ensure that UNESCO begins to deal with it.

In this context, UNESCO has finally sent an official response to the Community's appeal. The letter signed by the high-level official of the organization states that the issue raised by the Community regarding the state of Azerbaijani cultural heritage in the territory of Armenia is directly related to the mandate of UNESCO and that the Organisation was dealing with the issue using relevant mechanisms in this field.

This letter sent by UNESCO to the Community is an important development in bringing the issue of Azerbaijani cultural heritage in the territory of Armenia to the international agenda, taking practical steps in this field, international recognition the Community as an authoritative counterpart, as well as in establishment of dialogue between UNESCO and the Community.

The Community will continue the dialogue and interaction with UNESCO within the framework of international legal norms and mechanisms to achieve halting the ongoing destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage in the present-day Armenia and restoration of the already destroyed heritage sites.