Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan of Armenia on Thursday participated in, and delivered remarks at, the Ministerial Meeting of the Ancient Civilizations Forum in New York. In his remarks, the FM noted as follows, in particular:

“Armenia considers this Forum as a platform for cultural dialogue and cooperation that can play a significant role in meeting the challenges that today’s globalized world is facing. We are committed to actively supporting and contributing to joint efforts on strengthening intercultural dialogue, mutual understanding and acceptance.

We are convinced that optimized multicultural collaboration, knowledge exchange, and policies focused on fostering culturally inclusive dynamics, innovation, solidarity and sustainability can consolidate unfailing tolerance, respect for difference and peace.

As we speak, Armenian cultural heritage is being destroyed by Azerbaijan in the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh [(Artsakh)] that came under their control after the 2020 war. By pursuing its policy of destruction and eradication of the Armenian culture in the region both in peacetime and during the recent war, Azerbaijan wants to deny the very essence of this heritage. It is more than urgent for the international community to act and provide firm responses to prevent these barbaric acts that jeopardize peace efforts and the establishment of stability and security in the region. The intentional destruction of cultural heritage sites by Azerbaijan is a challenge not only to Armenia but to the whole of mankind, and it must be strongly condemned and dealt with. In this regard, we highly value UNESCO’s proposition to dispatch an independent expert mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, which so far has been and is still being blocked by Azerbaijan.

Armenia has repeatedly expressed its readiness to collaborate with international partners to achieve fair implementation of measures aiming to protect cultural heritage and invest in global efforts to enhance intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity.”