“After the liberation of Azerbaijani territories, which were kept under occupation for about 30 years, our country has started restoration and reconstruction process in these territories”.

Axar.az reports it has been reflected in the commentary of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan (MFA) on the statement of the Armenian MFA on restoration works in Shusha.

“Great reconstruction works are conducted in these territories now, at the same time, our historical, cultural, and religious heritage, destroyed during Armenian occupation, which lasted for tens of years, are restored.

Within the framework of large-scale construction works conducted in Shusha city, mosques, historical monuments, temples, house-museums, as well as Gazanchi Church is being restored. We would like to note that these reconstruction works are realized in accordance with just the original architectural style in order to restore the historical image of Shusha.

We would like also to mention that the discovery of the remains of the “Iskander M” missile 200 meters from the Kazanchi Church in Shusha, and fortunately the tragedy did not happen, showed that with this deadly weapon Armenia is ready to destroy the entire city, as well as the church it "values". We remind the Armenian Foreign Ministry that, unlike Armenia which has kept the territories of the neighboring country under the illegal military occupation for decades, each monument, building, even stone in its territories are valuable for Azerbaijan that has liberated its lands from the occupation; restoration of them and protection are considered important at a state level.

When it comes to Armenia, atrocities committed by this country against Azerbaijan are obvious. Armenia systematically or deliberately destroyed or changed the nature of cultural and historical heritage here, as well as manuscripts and other valuable exhibits of museums were destroyed or stolen and sold on black markets.

Valuable examples of carpet-weaving art of Azerbaijan were looted, hundreds of cultural institutions, 927 libraries with a fund of 4.6 million books, 22 museum and museum branches, which hosted more than 100,000 exhibits, 4 photo galleries, 8 cultural and recreation parks, as well as the Azykh Cave, which is one of the ancient residential places of the world, in Fuzuli district, Shusha State Historical-Architectural Reserve became victims of Armenian vandalism.

A country that caused all these atrocities and violations of international obligations has no moral or legal basis to comment on the reconstruction work carried out by Azerbaijan on its territory.

Today Azerbaijan is eliminating the grave consequences of Armenia’s aggressive policy and vandalism and therefore, in this case, it would be more right for the Armenian Foreign Ministry to make an apology statement, rather than baseless allegations,” MFA noted.