Baku lays out demands for UNESCO’s mission to rebel region
BAKU – A visit by a fact-finding mission of the U.N. agency in charge of the world's cultural heritage to the Armenia-occupied Nagorno Karabakh region of Azerbaijan that has been planned for several years has not yet taken place due to the lack of Baku’s consent, Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfaz Garayev said Thursday.
Garayev told reporters that the Azerbaijani government has put forth two conditions for UNESCO experts’ visit.
"First, if the mission is looking to study the plight of cultural heritage, along with Azerbaijan’s occupied territories, it has to visit other regions, as well as Armenia, and analyze the overall situation on the ground. Second, the UNESCO delegation must travel to Nagorno Karabakh through Azerbaijan."
Nagorno Karabakh has been occupied by Armenian armed forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and ousted about one million Azerbaijanis from their homes. Hundreds of Azerbaijani cultural heritage samples were destroyed during the war, which flared up due to the neighboring South Caucasus republic’s territorial claims.
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