Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, addressing the 41st Session of the UNESCO General Conference yesterday in Paris, said that Azerbaijan continues to block a UNESCO technical mission to territories in Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan following the 2020 Karabakh war.

“Along with the physical destruction of Nagorno-Karabakh's religious and cultural heritage, we witness unacceptable cases of distortion of the identity and changing of the architectural appearance of the Armenian cultural and religious heritage in the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh currently controlled by Azerbaijan with more than 1,500 cultural property and 19,000 museum exhibits,” Mirzoyan said according to a ministry press release.

Mirzoyan said the international community must spearhead efforts to prevent the Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh from sharing the tragic fate of the 28,000 Armenian cultural sites destroyed in Nakhijevan.