“For more than 20 years Azerbaijan has been appealing to UNESCO to send a fact-finding (technical) mission to assess the state of the cultural property, i.e. to assess the magnitude of destruction of the Azerbaijani cultural heritage in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan”, Permanent Delegate of Azerbaijan to UNESCO, Ambassador Elman Abdullayev stated this in IDD Talks program in an interview to the journalist Anastasia Lavrina, News.Az reports.

The Ambassador said that now, Azerbaijan is also demanding UNESCO to send another mission to assess the state of the cultural property of Azerbaijanis in Armenia. As it is known, in the course of the meeting held on video conference format on 04 February 2022, with participation of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of France Emmanuel Macron, the President of the European Council Charles Michel and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, it was agreed to send separate missions of UNESCO to Azerbaijan and Armenia. “Unfortunately, we see the double standards in the international community. We have to come with more appeals throughout the official and non-official organizations”, said the ambassador.

On March 27, the Western Azerbaijan Community sent a letter to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay urging the organization to send a fact-finding mission to Armenia to assess the state of Azerbaijani cultural heritage there. The community expressed its concern with the destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage in Armenia and stated its readiness to collaborate with UNESCO in carrying out activities aimed at assessing, restoring, preserving, and protecting Azerbaijani cultural heritage in Armenia, and ensuring the cultural rights of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia to access and enjoy their cultural heritage.

“In addition to the alteration that was done by Armenian authorities to Azerbaijani mosque in Yerevan, there has also been an immense (deliberate) destruction to erase the traces of the presence of historical Azerbaijani culture and heritage in Armenia. We need to keep showing and demonstrating to the international community the huge magnitude of the destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage throughout all Armenia”,  Ambassador Elman Abdullayev said.

News.Az