The UN has issued a letter from Artsakh FM David Babayan to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as an official document in connection with the systematic and deliberate destruction of the Armenian cultural heritage by the Azerbaijani authorities in the territories of Artsakh under Azerbaijani occupation, which is a gross violation of international law.

The letter presents detailed facts of the consistent committing of similar crimes by the Azerbaijani authorities during the Soviet Era, and then in subsequent years with the aim of partially or completely destroying any evidence of an Armenian presence in the territories under Azerbaijani control.

In particular, the deliberate destruction of several thousand medieval khachkars of the Armenian cemetery in Nakhichevan in 1997-2006 is indicated as the most tragic fact of the practice of destroying the Armenian cultural heritage.

The letter also says that in Soviet times and in 1992-1994. During the military aggression against the Republic of Artsakh, the Azerbaijani authorities destroyed 167 Armenian churches, 8 monastic complexes, and 123 cemeteries. During the same period, about 2,500 Armenian khachkars and over 10,000 Armenian tombstones were destroyed and used as building materials.