Azernews.Az

A forum dedicated to the so-called "Armenian monuments" in Nakhchivan and the alleged affiliation of the Azerbaijani autonomous republic with Armenia was held at the Harvard University with the support of the Armenian lobby in the United States on Thursday.

The event was sponsored by an Armenian research center operating in the U.S. and an Armenian company working in Canada.
A master of the university's Kennedy School of Government, Azerbaijani student Mehriban Sultanova, attended the event.
"The university's professor on Armenian studies, ethnic Armenian James Russel said in his opening remarks that Nakhchivan had allegedly belonged to indigenous Armenians from the b.c.e. period till the 20th century. He then claimed that over 30,000 'Armenian monuments' had been destroyed there. After his presentation, photos purportedly belonging to Nakhchivan were put up on the screen," Sultanova said.
Deputy head of the Armenian agency on the protection of historical and cultural heritage, Agram Ayvazian, said a 6-7 volume book on the history of Nakhchivan was in the making and would be published soon. He said he was directing a documentary on the region's "Armenian monuments", with the first part of the movie to be screened in the coming days.
Ayvazian indicated on a map the territory of Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh, an Azerbaijani region under occupation, as the "Upper Garabagh Republic" circled in red. Nakhchivan's territory was highlighted the same way.
The photos demonstrated by the Armenian scholar at the event suggested that the monument to Momina Khatun, the mother of the 12th century ruler Jahan Shah from the Azerbaijani Atabaylar Dynasty, allegedly belonged to Armenians as well. Ayvazian maintained that Azerbaijan was trying to wipe out Armenian traces pertaining to the monument and present it to the world as its own. He claimed that several other monuments, including the Khudaferin bridge located between northern and southern Azerbaijan, also belonged to Armenians, and that the Azerbaijani government was attempting "to appropriate" these sites and achieve their inclusion in UNESCO's cultural heritage list.
Armenians went as far as demanding the UNESCO secretary general to step down and expressed concern over what they described as the world community's indifference to their claims.
Steven Sim of Scotland alleged that not a single such site has been left in the region. In the midst of his address, he began to present sheep figures as "Armenian monuments", but only to face a dumbfounding question from Azerbaijani student Sultanova, who queried why one of the figures had inscriptions in Arabic. Asked when Armenians used this language, Sim was stumped and further tried to cover up his lies by saying that while in Nakhchivan, he had also taken pictures of Azerbaijani monuments and that this particular one was written onto the CD he was using by mistake.
Harvard University's Armenian professors also plan to hold an exhibition entitled "Armenian monuments in the Nakhchivan region". Advertisement materials claimed once again that Nakhchivan had allegedly been a land of Armenians till the 20th century. The Azerbaijani embassy in the U.S. is holding consultations on the matter and the Azerbaijani community is expected to put forth its terse reaction to the claims soon.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman Khazar Ibrahim has said the embassy would avail of all diplomatic means to prevent the conduct of the event.