Artsakh Cultural Heritage Ombudsman: Azerbaijan`s election to  the  UNESCO Committee is a  mockery of the idea of protecting cultural  heritage

ArmInfo.The election of Azerbaijan to the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflicts for 2025-2029 is a mockery of the idea of protecting cultural heritage, given the crimes committed by the Azerbaijani side against Armenian Christian heritage, as noted in a statement issued by the Artsakh Cultural Heritage Ombudsman following the results of the 16th Meeting of States Parties to the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention held on December 1 and 2.

"Azerbaijan has secured a place in a structure intended to protect  cultural heritage, not serve as a platform for the political  self-legitimization of states with a genocidal past. However, this is  where the main paradox and the main cynicism begins. Over the years  of military campaigns against Artsakh, one of the systematic,  obvious, and documented targets of the Azerbaijani armed forces has  been the region's cultural heritage," the Artsakh Cultural Ombudsman  recalled.

He noted that this concerns not only territories, infrastructure, and  the lives of civilians, but also churches, monasteries, cemeteries,  and historical sites, many of which have a millennia-long history and  belong to a unique Armenian cultural heritage.

In this regard, he noted that UNESCO, an organization obligated to be  an arbiter and moral guide in matters of cultural heritage  protection, is taking a step that undermines its own principles.  Indeed, as the Ombudsman noted, instead of demanding independent  investigations into the destruction committed in Artsakh, UNESCO is  effectively handing Azerbaijan a mandate of trust, as if nothing had  happened, and there were no broken crosses, destroyed khachkars, or  vanished cultural monuments.

However, he expressed the conviction that memory cannot be rewritten,  as cultural heritage is not a decorative value or diplomatic coin,  but the roots of a people, its spiritual territory, its history, and  its right to exist.

"And that is precisely why Azerbaijan's election as a member of the  UNESCO Committee seems emblematic of an era where politics is more  important than truth, and international structures are willing to  sacrifice principles for the sake of futile 'balancing acts,'" the  Artsakh Cultural Heritage Ombudsman concluded.