Watchdog: Azerbaijan continues destruction of Armenian heritage

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ombudsman of Culture of Hayk Hovik Avanesov reports that Azerbaijan continues to destroy and appropriate not only the cultural heritage of Artsakh, but also state buildings and private properties.

“Another video published on Azerbaijani social media platforms shows how Azerbaijani vandals modify the building of the head office of the Artsakh Bank and rob the building of the National Assembly,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Concerns about the preservation of cultural sites in Nagorno-Karabakh are made all the more urgent by the Azerbaijani government’s history of systemically destroying indigenous Armenian heritage—acts of both warfare and historical revisionism. The Azerbaijani government has secretly destroyed a striking number of cultural and religious artifacts in the late 20th century. Within Nakhichevan alone, a historically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani forces destroyed at least 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars (Armenian cross stones) and 22,000 historical tombstones between 1997 and 2006.