Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev “raised the national flag of Azerbaijan in the town of Khankendi (the Azerbaijani name for Stepanakert) on Sunday, October 15, for the first time in the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region recaptured from Armenian separatists in September following a lightning military offensive from Baku.
This is the first time that Ilham Aliev, 61, has visited Nagorno-Karabakh since he came to power in 2003, when he succeeded his father Heydar Aliev.
Dressed in khaki military fatigues and a black T-shirt according to images published by his services, the leader also hoisted the flag with three horizontal bands – sky blue, red, green – in other localities in Upper Karabakh, on the occasion of this hitherto secret trip.
Protect places of worship
The same day, Pope Francis appealed to preserve the religious heritage of Nagorno-Karabakh, particularly its monasteries, after the offensive by Azerbaijani forces in September that led to the flight of almost the entire Armenian population .
“Beyond the humanitarian situation of the displaced people, which is serious, I would like to appeal for the protection of the monasteries and places of worship in the region,” Francis said after his traditional Angelus prayer in place Saint Pierre.
“I hope that they can be respected, both by the authorities and by all its inhabitants, and protected as part of the local culture, in an expression of faith and the sign of a fraternity which allows us to live together in differences,” added the sovereign pontiff.
Several hundred churches, monasteries and tombstones dating from the 11th to the 19th centuries dot the region. With the recent exodus and departure of priests from the Dadivank monastery, supposedly founded in the early days of Christianity by Saint Dadi, uncertainty weighs on this heritage.
Many places of worship threatened
According to the “Caucasus Heritage Watch”, a project that uses satellite images to document the architectural heritage of the Caucasus, dozens of churches, mosques and monasteries are abandoned, destroyed or threatened to be destroyed. .
The Azerbaijani authorities denounce the desecration or degradation of mosques and Muslim sites in areas that were under Armenian control.
Last September, Baku won a military victory in twenty-four hours against the Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has since been emptied of a huge part of its population. Before that, Azerbaijan and Armenia had opposed each other in two wars for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, one in the 1990s following the breakup of the USSR, the other during the fall 2020, won by Baku.