NDP: Azerbaijan’s attempts to falsify Gandzasar’s Armenian identity cannot change its true origin and affiliation

Arminfo. Azerbaijan’s attempts to falsify Gandzasar’s Armenian identity, distort the inscriptions, or declare the complex “Albanian” cannot change its true origin and affiliation.

The Council of the National Democratic Pole (NDP) made this statement on its Facebook page in connection with the visit organized on September 11-12 by the diplomatic corps accredited in Azerbaijan to occupied Artsakh. The Council called it yet another act of spiritual and cultural vandalism and a cynical provocation by Azerbaijan.

“We strongly condemn the provocative visit of Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev to Gandzasar—a medieval monastic complex that is one of the exceptional monuments of Armenian spiritual and cultural heritage in Artsakh—as well as the cheap propaganda show organized there in the presence of foreign diplomats. Azerbaijan’s state machine continues its criminal policy of destroying the Armenian historical trace, appropriating cultural heritage, and forcibly “Albanizing” it. The mockery of ancient Armenian manuscripts, their presentation as forgeries, as well as the staging intended to discredit Armenian heritage by displaying “blank pages” in copies of these manuscripts, deserve particular condemnation,” the NDP stated.

In this regard, the Council emphasized that actual or legal control over any territory cannot change the national, historical, or religious identity of the cultural heritage located there. “An Armenian monastery, church, khachkar, inscription, or manuscript, regardless of where it is located, remains part of Armenian heritage and is subject to protection under international law.  Articles 4 and 5 of the 1954 Hague Convention oblige parties to respect and preserve cultural property, including in occupied territories. Article 9 of the Second Protocol to the same Convention, adopted in 1999, prohibits any changes to or use of cultural property intended to conceal or destroy evidence of its cultural, historical, or scientific affiliation. Consequently, attempts to falsify Gandzasar’s Armenian identity, distort the inscriptions, or declare the complex “Albanian” cannot change its true origin and affiliation,” the NDP emphasized.

The Council called all this a manifestation of a policy aimed at erasing traces of Armenian cultural identity. At the same time, the political force drew attention to the fact that all this is taking place with the silent consent and inaction of the Armenian authorities. “We also condemn the conduct of the foreign diplomats who were present at the site. Their silence in the face of the open appropriation of exceptional Armenian heritage and the falsification of history is perceived as tolerance toward Azerbaijan’s policy of cultural cleansing. And we demand that UNESCO and the international community provide a clear and targeted assessment of the situation concerning Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh. At the same time, we declare: despite our enemies and their accomplices, the Armenian people will never renounce their history, their holy sites, or their homeland. The Armenian people will defend them and restore their rights. That day is not far off,” the NDP concluded.

It should be noted that at the end of last week it became known that representatives of the foreign diplomatic corps accredited in Baku had visited occupied Artsakh, including Shushi and Stepanakert, where the Azerbaijani occupation regime is erasing all Armenian presence with the silent encouragement of the so-called civilized international community. They then visited the Armenian monasteries of Dadivank and Gandzasar and listened with admiration to the tales of Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev that these were allegedly Albanian holy sites.  Among the participants was also the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Magdalena Grono, who told journalists  of her intention to visit Armenia after Azerbaijan and occupied Artsakh.