Armenia's repair of mosque in occupied Shusha attempt to cover up vandalism

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

A country that respects religious and secular values ??doesn’t falsify history by "restoring" religious sites that it itself destroyed, spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva has said.

She was commenting on Armenian reports about the completion of repair work in the Upper Govhar Agha Mosque in occupied Shusha city. Recently, Armenian media wrote that the event marking the completion of the Upper Govhar Agha Mosque’s "restoration" would take place on October 14, 2019.

“Armenia’s "restoration" of the Yukhari Govhar Agha Mosque (Juma) mosque in Shusha, built in the 19th century on the order of Govhar Agha, the daughter of the ruler of Karabakh, Ibrahim Khan, is a part of the policy of the occupying country to misappropriate the material, cultural and religious monuments in the territory of Azerbaijan and change their origin,” Abdullayeva noted.

“Thus, by "restoring" the Govhar Agha mosque, the aggressor country, trying to present this mosque as a Persian one, seeks to cast a shadow over the fact that Shusha is an ancient Azerbaijani city,” Abdullayeva added

Abdullayeva called hypocrisy Armenia’s attempt to demonstrate alleged respect for religious values, while this country carried out complete ethnic cleansing in occupied Azerbaijani lands by expelling local Muslim Azerbaijanis from their homes and lands.

She recalled that as a result of the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories by Armenia, the historical, material cultural heritage and religious monuments of Azerbaijan suffered significant damage, many of Azerbaijani monuments were destroyed and looted.

"Armenia is pursuing a policy of distorting the origin and the use of Azerbaijani monuments," Abdullayeva stressed.

She emphasized that reports based on specific facts related to the destruction by Armenia of the historical and cultural heritage of Azerbaijan in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent regions of Azerbaijan, have so far been submitted to key international organizations, in particular UNESCO, and also the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the ISESCO.

"As you know, resolutions on the destruction and desecration of objects of historical and cultural heritage, as well as temples belonging to the Islamic religion in the Azerbaijani territories occupied as a result of Armenia’s aggression are regularly adopted by OIC. The last such resolution was adopted in 2019 at the 46th meeting of foreign ministers of OIC in Abu Dhabi," she stated.

The Upper Govhar Agha Mosque, referring to location of the mosque in the upper section of Shusha town and to distinguish it from the Lower Govhar Agha Mosque, the same-name mosque located in lower section of the town. Both mosques are considered symbols of Shusha and masterpiece of both Azerbaijani and Eastern architecture.

After the occupation of Shusha by Armenian Armed Forces, the Mosque stopped functioning. Following a minor restoration of the mosque in 2008-2009, so-called “officials” from “Nagorno-Karabakh Ministry of Economy” ordered a restoration project, hiring Iranian experts to carry out the restoration works.

Azerbaijani officials expressed their concern over the restoration project saying that Armenia’s intention to restore the historical Azerbaijani mosque in Shusha is an attempt to cover up the vandalism it did to Azerbaijani cultural-religious monuments in the occupied territories.