AZERI’S CLAIM NAKHICHEVAN MONUMENTS ARE ALBANIAN–LAUNCH WAR OF WORDS AND ACCUSATIONS
ETCHMIADZIN (Armenpress)–The Armenian Apostolic Church denied reports by the Azerbaijani Trend and Russian Interfax news agencies claiming the spiritual leader of Caucasus Muslims–Allahshukur Pashazade–forwarded a letter to the Catholicos Karekin II of the Holy See of Etchmiadzin–asking him "to undertake measures to stop the destruction of historical and cultural monumen’s located in Azerbaijani territories now occupied by Armenian forces of Nagorno Karabagh."
The Armenian Church reported that Catholicos Karekin II did receive a letter from the Muslim cleric–but only in response to his letter asking Pashazade to exert his influence in order to stop the demolition of Armenian cultural and historical monumen’s–particularly cross stones in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan.
In his response to Karekin II–Pashazade claims that monumen’s in Nakhichevan [bearing Armenian inscriptions] belong to Caucasus Albanian Christians; Pashazade–in turn–alleges that "hundreds" of Azeri monumen’s in the Mountainous Karabagh Republic (MKR) and adjacent regions are being demolished.
Asked to comment on the Azeri cleric’s allegations–the head of the Karabagh Diocese–Archbishop Barkev Martirossian–said that that no monumen’s have been destroyed in MKR and neighboring regions; the only monumen’s damaged–he stressed–were as a result of the war in the 1990s.