Khachkar destruction in Nakhchivan

Khachkar destruction in Nakhchivan refers to documented accusations against Azerbaijan of embarking on a campaign beginning in 1998 and ending in December 2005 to completely demolish the cemetery of medieval Armenian khachkars near the town of Julfa, Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan. Claims by Armenians that Azerbaijan was undertaking a systematic campaign to destroy and remove the monuments first arose in late 1998 and those charges were renewed in 2002 and 2005.

Numerous appeals were filed by both Armenian and international organizations, condemning the Azerbaijani government and calling on it to desist from such activity. In 2006, Azerbaijan barred European Parliament members from investigating the claims, charging them with a "biased and hysterical approach" to the issue and stating that it would only accept a delegation if it visited Armenian-controlled territory as well.Castle, Stephen. " [http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article621782.ece Azerbaijan 'flattened' sacred Armenian site] ." "The Independent". April 16, 2006. Retrieved April 16, 2007.]

Background

Nakhchivan is an exclave which belongs to Azerbaijan, but Armenia's territory separates the two apart. The exclave also borders Turkey and Iran. It was from the Armenian plateau (which included Nakhchivan), [ Armenian Highland. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 23, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9009517] ] that the Persian King Shah Abbas I forcibly relocated the entire population, [ [http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/ot_grp5/ot_kangarlu_20040211.html Encyclopedia Iranica. P. Oberling. Kangarlu] .] [ [http://www.iranchamber.com/people/articles/armenians_in_iran1.php George A. Bournoutian. Armenians in Iran (ca. 1500-1994)] ] ru icon [http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus2/Davrizeci/text1.phtml Oriental Literature Library. Arakel Davrizetsi (Arakel of Tabriz). Book of Histories, translated by L. Khanlarian, Moscow, 1973.] Retrieved May 1, 2007.] which along with Muslims and Jews included between 75,000cite web |url=http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v7f3/v7f342.html |title=Deportations |last=Perry |first=John R. |work=Encyclopædia Iranica] and 300,000 Armenians from 1604 to 1605 and permanently resettled some of them in the outskirts of his capital, Isfahan.cite book
last = von Haxthausen
first = Baron
title = Transcaucasia: Sketches of the Nations and Races between the Black Sea and the Caspian
year = 2000
location = Boston
pages = 252
publisher = Adamant Media Corporation
isbn = 1-4021-8367-4] [cite book
last = Bournoutian
first = George A
title = A Concise History of the Armenian People
year = 2006
location = Costa Mesa, CA
pages = 210-211
publisher = Mazda
isbn = 1-5685-9141-1] [cite book
last = Olson
first = James Stuart
title = An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires
year = 1994
location = Westport, CT.
pages = 44
publisher = Greenwood
isbn = 0-313-27497-5] Much of the Armenian cultural heritage, including the khachkars which dated back to the 9th to 16th centuries,Page, Jeremy. " [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article707673.ece Historic graveyard is victim of war] ." "The Times". April 21, 2006. Retrieved April 17, 2007.] was left behind as nearly the region's whole population was moved.

Destruction

Initial claims

Armenia first brought up charges against the Azerbaijani government for destroying khachkars in 1998 in the town of Julfa. Several years earlier, Armenia had supported Armenian separatists fighting for their independence in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. The war concluded in 1994 with a cease fire that resulted in Azerbaijan losing 14% of its territory, including those outside of Nagorno-Karabakh and the "de facto" but unrecognized state of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Since the end of the war, enmity against Armenians in Azerbaijan has built up. According to the Archaeological Institute of America, the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenians has "played a part in this attempt to eradicate the historical Armenian presence in Nakhchivan."Pickman, Sarah. [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/djulfa/index.html Tragedy on the Araxes] . Archaeological Institute of America. June 30, 2006. Retrieved April 16, 2007]

In 1998, Azerbaijan dismissed Armenia's claims that the Khachkars were being destroyed. Arpiayr Petrosyan, a member of the organization Armenian Architecture in Iran, had initially pressed the claims after having witnessed and filmed bulldozers destroying the monuments.

Reacting to the claims, the government of Iran expressed concern over the destruction of the monuments and filed a protest with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic's government (NAR). Hasan Zeynalov, the permanent representative of the NAR in Baku, stated that the Armenian allegation was "another dirty lie of the Armenians." The government of Azerbaijan did not respond directly to the accusations but did state that "vandalism is not in the spirit of Azerbaijan."Wire report to BBC News. " [http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Azeris dismiss Iran's concern over Armenian monuments in Nakhchivan] ." The "BBC News" in "BBC Monitoring Central Asia". December 11, 1998. Retrieved April 16, 2007] Armenia's claims provoked international scrutiny that, according to Armenian Minister of Culture Gagik Gyurdjian, helped to temporarily stop the destruction.cite news
last = IWPR staff in Nakhchivan, Baku and Yerevan
title = Azerbaijan: Famous Medieval Cemetery Vanishes
publisher = Institute for War and Peace Reporting
date = April 19, 2006
url = http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?p=crs&s=f&o=261191&apc_state=henpcrs261191]

Armenian archaeologists and experts on the khachkars in Nakhchivan stated that when they first visited the region in 1987, prior to the break up of the Soviet Union, the monuments had stood intact and the region itself had as many as "27,000 monasteries, churches, khachkars, tombstones" among other cultural artifacts. By 1998, the number of khachkars was said to have been reduced to 2,700. Wire report to BBC News. " [http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Armenian intellectuals blast 'barbaric' destruction of Nakhchivan monuments] ." The "BBC News" in "BBC Monitoring Central Asia". February 13, 2003. Retrieved April 16, 2007]

Renewed claims in 2003

In 2003, Armenians renewed their protests claiming that Azerbaijan had restarted the destruction of the monuments. On December 4, 2002, Armenian historians and archaeologists met and filed a formal complaint and appealed to international organizations to investigate their claims.

The old Cemetery of Julfa is known to specialists to have housed as many as 10,000 of these carved khachkar headstones, up to 2,000 of which were still intact after an earlier outbreak of vandalism on the same site in 2002. Eyewitness accounts of the ongoing demolition describe an organized operation. In December 2005, Iranian Armenians documented more video evidence across the Araks river, which partially demarcates the border between Nakhchivan and Iran, stating that it showed Azeri troops had finished the destruction of the remaining khachkars by using sledgehammers and axes.

International response

Azerbaijan's government has faced a flurry of condemnation since the charges were first revealed. When the claims were first brought up in 1998, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ordered that the destruction of the monuments in Julfa cease. The complaints also brought forward similar appeals to end the activity to stop by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

In reaction to the charges brought forward by Armenia and international organizations, Azerbaijan has asserted, falsely, that Armenians had never existed in those territories. In December 2005, Zeynalov stated in a BBC interview that Armenians "never lived in Nakhchivan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that's why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any." Azerbaijan instead contends that the monuments were not of Armenian origin, but of Caucasian Albanian.

In regard to the destruction, according to the Azerbaijani Ambassador to the United States, Khafiz Pashayev, the videos and photographs that have surfaced do not show the identity of the people nor display what they are actually destroying. Instead, the ambassador asserts that the Armenian side started a propaganda campaign against Azerbaijan to divert attention from the alleged destruction of Azerbaijani monuments in Armenia. [Regnum News Agency. " [http://www.regnum.ru/english/574041.html Will the arrested minister become new leader of opposition? Azerbaijani press digest] ." Regnum News Agency Report. January 20, 2006. Retrieved April 15, 2007.] Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliev also denied the charges, calling them "a lie and a provocation."

Numerous non-Armenian scholars have condemned the destruction and urged the Azerbaijan government to give a more complete account. American anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, Adam T. Smith, called the removal of the khachkars "a shameful episode in humanity's relation to its past, a deplorable act on the part of the government of Azerbaijan which requires both explanation and repair." Smith and other scholars, as well as several United States Senators, signed a letter to UNESCO and other organizations condemning Azerbaijan's government. [Smith, Adam T. et al. [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/djulfa/letter.pdf A copy of the letter in PDF format] .]

In the spring of 2006, a journalist from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting claimed to have visited the cemetery and wrote that it had "completely vanished." In the same year, European parliamentary members protested to the Azerbaijani government when they were barred from inspecting the cemetery. Hannes Swoboda, an Austrian socialist MEP and committee member who was denied access to the region, commented that "If they do not allow us to go, we have a clear hint that something bad has happened. If something is hidden we want to ask why. It can only be because some of the allegations are true." Doctor Charles Tannock, a conservative member of the European Parliament for Greater London, echoed those sentiments and compared the destruction to the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in Bamyan, Afghanistan in 2001. He cited in a speech a British architect, Steven Sim, an expert in the region who attested that the video footage shot from the Iranian border was genuine. [Dr Charles Tannock. [http://www.charlestannock.com/speech.asp?id=1130 Cultural heritage in Azerbaijan] . Speech delivered to the Plenary on February 16, 2006. The home page of Dr Charles Tannock, Member of the European Parliament for Greater London. Retrieved April 16, 2007.]

Azerbaijan barred the European Parliament because it said it would only accept a delegation if it visited Armenian-controlled territory as well. "We think that if a comprehensive approach is taken to the problems that have been raised," said Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Tagizade, "it will be possible to study Christian monuments on the territory of Azerbaijan, including in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic."

After several more postponed visits, a renewed attempt was planned by PACE inspectors for August 29 - September 6 2007, led by British MP Edward O'Hara. As well as Nakhchivan, the delegation would visit Baku, Yerevan, Tbilisi, and Nagorno Karabakh [Agayeva, S. "Pace Mission to Monitor Cultural Monuments." Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan, August 22, 2007.] . The inspectors planned to visit Nagorno Karabakh via Armenia, and had arranged transport to facilitate this. However, on August 28, the head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE released a demand that the inspectors must enter Nagorno Karabakh via Azerbaijan. On August 29, PACE Secretary General Mateo Sorinas announced that the visit had to be canceled because of the difficulty in accessing Nagorno Karabagh using the route required by Azerbaijan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Armenia issued a statement saying that Azerbaijan had stopped the visit "due solely to their intent to veil the demolition of Armenian monuments in Nakhijevan." [Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, Press Release 29-08-2007.]

References

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZu2zqFE_gI The New Tears of Araxes]
* [http://www.armenica.org/multimedia/video/jougha1-qt.html Part 1 of the destruction caught on video tape]
* [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/djulfa/index.html Archaeological Institute of America]
* [http://www.international.icomos.org/risk/2002/azerbaijan2002.htm Destruction of the Armenian Cemetery at Djulfa] by International Council on Monuments and Sites
* [http://www.anc.net.au/in_turkey.htm Evidence of destruction in Turkey] by "Armenian National Committee of Australia"
* [http://www.djulfa.com/ Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum]