Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan wrote on his Facebook page: “In response to the shelling of the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi, I, along with various international cultural heritage organizations, sent a letter to the Director-General of UNESCO, drawing attention to the cultural component of the genocidal handwriting of Azerbaijan.

In the framework of the large-scale aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan these days, I have presented the facts of the shelling of the Hellenistic “Early Medieval Armenian Cultural Monument” in Tigranakert, the jewel of Armenian architecture in Shushi, the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral. The extermination of the Armenian cultural heritage in Nakhichevan, one of the key areas of Armenian civilization.

At the same time, by the example of the reconstruction of a Muslim mosque in Shushi, I have shown the completely opposite situation in terms of protection of cultural values, which exists in the free Artsakh Republic. Deliberate targeting of cultural heritage is a war crime and manifestation of genocidal policy . “I urge you to strongly condemn the ongoing Azerbaijani aggression, the targeting of the civilian population, the cultural genocide, which may affect the nearly 4,000 monuments of the Artsakh Republic.”