UNESCO still working on sending mission to Artsakh amid Azerbaijan’s obstacles

Azerbaijan continues to obstruct the visit of the UNESCO mission to Artsakh. One year after the 44-day Artsakh war, the organization’s mission is still unable to visit Artsakh, UNESCO is still working in that direction, the Azerbaijani Report agency reported.

“Currently we are working to organize that mission in Karabakh. We hope that it will be possible in the near future, but at present there are no necessary conditions. We are trying to get detailed information on this topic,” said UNESCO.

It turns out that Azerbaijan again does not give consent and creates various obstacles for the mission to visit Artsakh and its occupied territories. Months ago, Azerbaijani Minister of Culture of Anar Kerimov told reporters that negotiations on the visit of the UNESCO mission are underway, noting that the conditions of Azerbaijan and the technical details of the mission have been given to UNESCO.

“The organization must make a decision on that issue. We expect a fair and impartial position from them that the organization will not politicize the issue, but will act exclusively in accordance with its mandate,” Kerimov said.

Azerbaijan is doing everything possible to prevent the entry of the UNESCO mission to Artsakh and its occupied territories after the trilateral statement of the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on November 9. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs have made statements on the need to preserve the Armenian cultural heritage, on the involvement of UNESCO in the work, which Baku denies, continuing to make various accusations against the organization. In late August, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, at a meeting with the newly appointed UN Resident Coordinator in the country Vladanka Andreva, again made baseless accusations against Armenia and noted that Armenia as obstructing the entry of the UNESCO mission.

“After the war, we received signals from UNESCO that they want to come. Of course, we were surprised, because they never came when we called, for almost 30 years, and after the war they decided to come. We agreed, as far as I know, the latest information is that the mission has been extended, but now Armenia is against it. That is why the mission is being postponed again,” he said.

The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also referred to this next falsification of Aliyev. In addition, UNESCO, in its turn, stated in its targeted statements that the main obstacle to the entry of the mission is Azerbaijan. In particular, in December, the organization’s Deputy Director General for Culture Ernesto Otto stated that they had not yet received a response from Azerbaijan to send an expert mission to Artsakh.

“For now, we are only waiting for Azerbaijan’s response so that UNESCO can move forward in sending a mission,” he said.

Only in May-June, a positive shift was observed around the organization’s visit to Artsakh from Azerbaijan. Aliyev stated that discussions were underway with UNESCO and that they were in the final stages of negotiations on the mission’s arrival, after which, in late June, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva said that Baku was discussing the organizing UNESCO mission to the occupied territories in Artsakh: Akna (Aghdam), Varanda (Fizuli) regions and Shushi. However, in recent months, Baku has again resorted to aggressive rhetoric and actions, trying in every way to make it impossible for the organization’s mission to enter Artsakh.