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Azerbaijan is pursuing an institutional policy of destroying and falsifying the Armenian cultural heritage, Artsakh Minister of Education, Science and Culture Lusine Gharakhanyan told a press conference on Tuesday, ahead of a conference on Artsakh's endangered heritage to be hosted by Matenadaran later today. 

“Currently, the fate of around 2,000 historical, cultural and architectural monuments in the [Artsakh] territories occupied by the enemy is endangered,” the minister said.

She noted that 13 monastic complexes, 122 churches, 52 fortresses, 523 khachkars, 4 chapels, 127 school libraries with 617,000 books, 3 regional libraries with 68,398 books, 10 public and 2 private museums are left in the Azerbaijani-occupied territories.

“Tigranakert Archaeological Museum-Reserve is also left on the territory controlled by the enemy. Unfortunately, the Hunot Canyon is in a neutral zone, while it is not yet known whether it will be considered ours or not. The Melik's Palace in Togh is a historical and cultural reserve, the reception chamber of Melik Yegan was restored, valuable exhibits were found during excavations in the area of the palace,” the minister said.

“During the excavations in Azokh, exhibits had been found that were taken by Azerbaijan,” Gharakhanyan added.

The minister stated the Azerbaijani authorities are pursuing two policies: they are either destroying the Armenian monuments or falsely presenting them to be Albanian.

“I believe that we have good scientific and historical material, we just need to correctly and competently propagate it, we need to use all information platforms so that we can save them from danger. On December 21, a UNESCO monitoring group was set to visit Artsak, but Azerbaijan disrupted it,” the minister said.

According to Gharakhanyan, this is an “ethnocide” in an effort to deal a strong blow to the Armenian identity.

“Today a second Yeghern [the Armenian term for genocide] has begun – a Yeghern after Yeghern. We are trying to achieve results in different ways – through peacekeepers, the channels of the Foreign Ministry and international organizations, but international organizations still fail to take concrete steps, no substantive and tangible results for the preservation and protection of our monuments are yet visible,” she said.