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Azerbaijani President: "Armenians destroyed almost 70 mosques on the occupied territories"

13 January 2021 16:24 (UTC +04:00)

"I would like to express gratitude to you Mr Director General personally and to ICESCO for continuous support to Azerbaijan during all the years of our close cooperation. Especially I would like to express gratitude for decisions made during the war, said President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he received delegation led by ICESCO Director General Salim bin Mohammed AlMalik, APA reports.

"In the beginning of October, just several days after the war started ICESCO issued a very supportive statement, decisions to support Azerbaijan’s just cause. Also I would like to express gratitude for your letter of congratulations with respect to the victory which you kindly sent me after our glorious victory. All this demonstrates our unity, demonstrates the unity of our people. As you know, Azerbaijan always was a strong advocate for issues related to Islamic solidarity and there were numerous events of ICESCO in Azerbaijan. I hope this will continue and we always called for unity among Muslim countries. What you have seen in Aghdam and in other parts also shows how Armenian leadership treated the religious feelings and history of Muslims. They destroyed all our mosques except one, the one in Aghdam they did not completely destroy only because they needed to have some landmark to plan their artillery attacks, if or when Azerbaijani army moves forward. They needed to measure the distance. That was the reason. But there have been numerous pictures and videos how they keep pigs and cows in our mosque. And this is insult not only to Azerbaijanis, but to all the Muslims. During my visit to the liberated territories in Zangilan, I went to completely destroyed mosque in Zangilan. In Shusha they destroyed all the mosques completely except one, which was also half destroyed but they in order to demonstrate that they protect Islamic cultural and religious sites, they tried to make some repair works. Unfortunately, one foreign company joined this provocative initiative and without our permission came to Shusha, violating our legislation, violating our borders. Without permission of Azerbaijani government that foreign company under the patronage of illegal regime which existed in Nagorno-Karabakh at that time, made some repairments. And thus, they became the partner to criminals because Armenians destroyed almost 70 mosques on the occupied territories and trying to make repairments in one of them was just an attempt to demonstrate that they are tolerant, that they respect the Muslim culture, the feelings of the Muslims. If they did so, why they did destroy the others, and why they did not repair the others? And that foreign company which came to Shusha, didn’t they see that other mosques are destroyed? All the religious and cultural heritage was destroyed. They behaved even worse than separatists who destroyed it. But we will restore everything. We will bring everything to its initial origin and rebuild the territories. I am sure that next time you visit us you will have also an opportunity to visit Shusha which was announced by me as the capital of Azerbaijani culture," noted the head of state.