Vandalism becomes a key topic of mutual accusations between Armenia and Azerbaijan

The Azerbaijani authorities did not react to the complaints of the Armenian Apostolic Church and Yerevan about the graffiti on the walls of the cathedral in Shushi. Armenia treats the above graffiti as an example of the targeted destruction of the Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku accuses Armenia of desecrating Muslim cemeteries and mosques.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Armenian Ministry of Culture called on international organizations to protect cultural monuments in Karabakh.

The graffiti on the wall of the Kazanchetsots Cathedral includes the names of Azerbaijani cities and villages, from which, apparently, the soldiers who made them had been drawn to the colour, the "Kommersant" reports. The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) declared the "deliberate desecration" of the Kazanchetsots Cathedral.

Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bülbüloğlu has announced that all Armenian cultural monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh will be preserved, the TASS reports.

In turn, Khikmet Gadjiev, the assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, wrote on Twitter that, as it turned out after the establishment of the Azerbaijani control over a number of territories, mosques had been desecrated in Karabakh. So, in the Gubadli District, the Mamar mosque of the 18th century was used as a pigsty. Khikmet Gadjiev considered the above as an insult to Muslims, since a pig is considered as an unclean animal in Islam.

According to the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS), since the 1990s, 63 out of 67 mosques have been destroyed and hundreds of historical and cultural monuments have been damaged in the Karabakh conflict zone.