"Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan" referred to Azerbaijan's declaration of "Shushi, the cultural capital of the Islamic world in 2024"

The "Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan" pan-Armenian union referred to Azerbaijan's declaration of "Shushi, the cultural capital of the Islamic world in 2024" in a statement.

According to "Armenpress", the announcement states: "As it became known, the Azerbaijani government has approved the Action Plan on declaring Shushi the "Cultural Capital of the Islamic World", which also plans to hold "Shushi Days" and many other "cultural" events in Islamic countries. In fact, Azerbaijan is turning Armenian Shushi from the "cultural capital of Azerbaijan" into the "cultural capital of the Islamic world", simultaneously destroying and mutilating the entire Armenian heritage of the city, transforming the Holy Ghazanchetsots church, which was shelled during the war, desecrating the spiritual and architectural structure of the church, vandalizing the Shushi cemetery under the pretext of road construction. .

All this is happening within the framework of the action plan to prevent the return of the depopulated Shushi's Armenians, while still until 2023: after the war of September 19-20 and the ethnic cleansing that followed, according to the 7th point of the tripartite agreement of November 9, Azerbaijan was obliged to allow the return of refugees, including Shushians, to their homeland.

Armenian Shushi, caught in the clutches of the politics of racism, has unfortunately witnessed Armenian pogroms more than once. 104 years ago, the Armenians of Shushi faced an existential threat again in the face of the extremely pan-Turkist, pan-Islamist and staunch Armenian-hater Khosrov bey Sultanov's governor-general, who in 1919 was the first attempt to incite Armenian massacres. Khosrov bey Sultanov, being also a resident of Baku in 1918. one of the people responsible for the massacre of more than 30,000 Armenians, had well mastered the practice of pogrom and the possibility of impunity, which he fully applied in the process of dehumanizing Shush. Before proceeding to the massacre of Armenians in the city, Khosrov bey Sultanov had removed the treasury and the telegraph office from the Armenian part of the city, closed the Shushi-Goris road. In 1920 More than 20,000 Armenians died in the Shushi pogroms. Shushi was practically depopulated. This was an integral part of the Muslim Azerbaijan's plan to completely subjugate Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh Republic-ed.) to Azerbaijan.

A careful study of the historical past allows us to claim that the current regime of Azerbaijan has greatly "benefited" from past experience in the past three years of violence against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh-ed.), in particular, illegal blockade of roads, use of brute force, nothing assurances of unguaranteed security, the end of which is ethnic cleansing, both 104 years ago and today.

The Pan-Armenian Union "Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan" strongly criticizes the abusive behavior of Azerbaijan. Instead of reassessing the violated rights of more than half a million deported Gardman Armenians, Shirvan Armenians, and Pakhichevan Armenians, initiating an internationally guaranteed return process of more than 100 thousand Artsakh Armenians subjected to ethnic cleansing, and being concerned about the preservation of Armenian cultural heritage, Azerbaijan does not stop its ethnophobic, neo-nationalist policy that serves narrow clan interests. This is a shameful reality, to which the international community should immediately give an adequate and practical response."