The Azerbaijani authorities on Thursday refused to allow U.S. Ambassador Matthew Bryza to visit an ancient Armenian cemetery in Azerbaijan that was reportedly destroyed by them in 2005.
The cemetery, which once had thousands of intricately carved Armenian cross stones, or khachkars, is located near Julfa, a town in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan.
Videos that emerged in late 2005 purportedly showed Azerbaijani troops attacking the UNESCO-protected gravestones. They elicited condemnation from the European Parliament and other bodies.
The Azerbaijani government denied their destruction at the time. Still, a 2006 report by the London-based by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) confirmed that the cemetery has vanished. The IWPR said its journalist was near enough to see that the cemetery was gone.
Armenian News
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