Khachatourian: Azerbaijan’s Carte Blanche to Destroy Monuments

We have extensively criticized Armenia’s foreign policy and diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis the protocols and the Karabagh conflict resolution process, but a small news item last week prompts us to warn that someone’s asleep at the wheel again.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, voted to admit Azerbaijan on its body that oversees the preservation of cultural monuments around the world. The Azeri news item points out that Armenia did not get the necessary votes to be included in this important body.

For over a decade now Azerbaijan has been mounting a two-pronged policy where, on the one hand, it systematically destroys Armenian cultural monuments in Nakhichevan and elsewhere in Azerbaijan, while on the diplomatic front it wages an international campaign to accuse Armenia of doing the same.

Our publication [Asbarez] has extensively covered Azerbaijan’s campaign to eradicate Armenian historical monuments, and efforts by Armenian NGO’s and to a certain extent governments to shed light on this cultural genocide.

Yet when push comes to shove, the diplomatic corps, especially those guiding our representation at the UN, have fallen short.

For years, planned visits by UNESCO officials have been postponed and canceled, and Armenia’s efforts to shed light on this critical matter have fallen on deaf ears. Now, Azerbaijan will not only ensure that relevant UNESCO bodies visit the region, but they will also use the junket to meet their needs and destructive policies.

When Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) parliamentary bloc chairman Vahan Hovannesian raised the imperative for new blood in the foreign ministry and in Armenia’s diplomatic circles, he was alluding to the tired nature of our diplomatic activities in comparison to the excess noise that usually surrounds Azeri efforts.

Several years ago, Azerbaijan’s diplomats maneuvered a resolution at the UN Security Council that in no uncertain terms characterized Armenia as an “aggressor.” Just last month, again due to Azeri efforts, the European Parliament approved a report urging the immediate withdrawal of Armenians from the liberated territories surrounding the Nagorno Karabagh Republic.

In response to the UN Security Council decision, Armenia was quick to point out that the international powers—U.S., Russia, France, and other European countries—had abstained from the vote and condemned the discussion of the Karabagh conflict outside the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). A similar response was also provided for last month’s debacle when Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian declared that only the OSCE was mandated with dealing with the Karabagh issue. Let’s not even revisit the deafening silence from official Yerevan during most of the protocols process.

A clear pattern of reacting rather than initiating can be seen in Armenia’s maneuvering of important foreign policy issues, and its lack of activism is paving the way for others to step in and claim legitimacy.

Just how active was Armenia’s UN Mission in lobbying for membership in the UNESCO committee? Perhaps we will never know. But what is crystal clear is that Azerbaijan just secured a carte blanche to continue its savage desecration of Armenian monuments and its destructive policies.