AnewZ spotlights UNESCO’s failure to protect Azerbaijani heritage in Karabakh VIDEO

AnewZ has released a documentary report examining UNESCO’s inaction and passive approach toward the protection of architectural and cultural heritage sites in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh and East Zangezur regions that were damaged or destroyed during the years of Armenian occupation.

The report notes that for many years Azerbaijan repeatedly called on UNESCO to assess cultural monuments that had been damaged or destroyed in territories that were then under Armenian control. However, a comprehensive mission was never dispatched, according to Caliber.Az.

Official Azerbaijani figures indicate that the destruction impacted a broad range of cultural and historical sites, including eight cities, nearly 1,000 villages, 65 mosques, 44 religious temples, and 473 historical monuments. Approximately 40,000 museum artefacts were also reportedly destroyed, looted, or damaged.

Azerbaijan repeatedly requested that UNESCO send a fact-finding mission to document the damage. UNESCO, for its part, maintained that access required the consent of the parties concerned. As a result, no inspectors were deployed, no full inventory was conducted, and no international assessment of the damage was carried out at the time.

Following the 2020 war, UNESCO proposed an independent technical mission under the framework of the 1954 Hague Convention. Azerbaijan said it did not oppose such an inspection but sought agreement on the mission’s mandate, route, and the list of sites to be visited.

Disagreements also emerged over the terminology used to describe the territory. Baku objected to the designation “Mission to Karabakh” and proposed the wording “Mission to the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.” UNESCO did not accept the proposed wording.

As a result, no agreement was reached, and the mission failed to move forward.

The situation surrounding Azerbaijani cultural monuments in Karabakh and East Zangezur continues to raise important questions. Among them are whether UNESCO used all available mechanisms to gain access to the sites before 2020 and why a comprehensive international assessment of the destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage has yet to be conducted.

By Jeyhun Aghazada