Former Artsakh Culture Ministers Demand That Armenia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Publicly Assess Azerbaijan’s Policy Toward Armenian Heritage in the Occupied NKR

ArmInfo.  Former ministers of culture of the Republic of Artsakh have addressed Armenia’s Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan, demanding that she take effective and consistent measures to protect, document and present Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh internationally.

According to a statement published on the Artsakh Ministry of Culture’s Facebook page, the appeal was prompted by the ongoing policy of destroying, distorting the identity of and appropriating Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh, as well as by attempts to present and legitimize this process internationally.

The former ministers demand that Armenia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports provide a public and clear assessment of Azerbaijan’s policy toward Armenian cultural heritage, establish effective state mechanisms for monitoring and documenting it, and consistently raise the issue of protecting Armenian heritage at international professional and interstate forums.

The appeal also includes a demand to place on the international agenda the issue of preserving Artsakh’s museum collections, documenting their legal status and returning these collections in the context of the cultural rights of displaced Artsakh Armenians.  The protection of cultural heritage cannot be limited merely to recording facts. It requires a clear state position and effective steps.

It should be noted that at the end of last week it became known that representatives of the foreign diplomatic corps accredited in Baku visited occupied Artsakh. They visited Shushi and Stepanakert, where the Azerbaijani occupation regime is erasing all Armenian presence with the tacit 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 told by Azerbaijani presidential aide Himke Dajiyev that these were allegedly Albanian shrines.  Among the participants was also the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Magdalena Grono, who also witnessed the show put on by Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev. In particular, the latter attempted to accuse Armenia of falsifying history, choosing as his tool models of ancient manuscripts that were displayed in the museum of occupied Gandzasar.