European Parliament
Ioannis Kasoulides,
on behalf of the PPE-DE Group
Mr President, for the Armenian people – the victims of genocide and massive expulsion from their homelands – to witness the destruction of their cultural heritage is perhaps the last chapter in their total deracination. ‘Nothing is happening’, say the Azerbaijani authorities. I know that where there is smoke there is fire. This total denial reminds me of the total denial that the genocide ever existed, the claim that it is a figment of the Armenian imagination.
In an exchange of e-mails with me, the political affairs advisor of the Azerbaijani embassy wrote, and I quote ‘we cannot exclude that some poor peasants of relevant cultural level might secretly use the stones from the cemetery for building construction or other related works’.
I cannot be sure who the perpetrators are, but I am sure that the responsibility for safeguarding the integrity of these monuments is 100% Azerbaijani.

