The United Nations, European Union, and United States in recent days conferred diplomatic backing to Azerbaijan’s claim to Armenia’s Christian continuity as its own. Photographed laughing and dancing steps from razed Armenian churches and homes, an Azerbaijani state guided tour of the emptied Armenian heartland makes a mockery of international resolutions and commitments to religious freedom.
International diplomats are seen participating in an Azerbaijani state-guided tour of the empty cathedrals of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) on September 11-12 , 2026, three years after the forced displacement of its entire Armenian Christian population.
YEREVAN – Azerbaijan, three years since its violent expulsion of the indigenous Armenian Christian population of Artsakh, or Nagorno Karabakh, is fully engaged in not only preventing Armenians from returning, but denying their ties to their ancient religious and cultural heritage.
In the service of this goal, Baku on September 11-12 bussed in some 150 representatives from 58 countries and nine international organizations, from the United Nations to the European Union, enlisting them in its systematic campaign of cultural destruction and appropriation.
The itinerary included the cities of Shushi and Stepanakert, and monasteries of Gandzasar and Dadivank – places that had formed an integral part of the religious, cultural, and family life of the Armenian population before its forced displacement in September 2023.
Armenians around the world watched as a flood of videos on social media showed foreign diplomats smiling, praising, and even dancing in empty towns, steps from where Azerbaijan had bulldozed Armenian Apostolic churches, neighborhoods, and cemeteries just months and even weeks prior.
US Charge d’Affaires Amy Carlon is seen dancing during an Azerbaijani state guided tour on September 11, 2026 in the historic Armenian region of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), from where the entire Armenian population was forcefully expelled three years prior.
Their churches, where they had worshipped for centuries, were now being treated as museums by guides bent on writing them out of their own history.
During the visit, Hikmet Hajiyev, a senior aide to President Ilham Aliyev and a key figure in Azerbaijan’s dealings with Armenia, described Gandzasar and Dadivank as part of an “ancient Caucasian Albanian” civilization, and therefore the rightful property of modern Muslim Azerbaijan.
At Gandzasar, he described Armenian prince Hasan Jalal Dawla, who commissioned the 13th century monastery, as a “Caucasian Albanian ruler” – denying his Armenian identity.
But when delegation members paused to admire the marble tombstone of a member of the Hasan Jalal dynasty, the disconnect between the Azerbaijani claims and the indigenous Armenian culture was clear.
A diplomat asked about the inscriptions, and the Azerbaijani guide admitted on camera that she “unfortunately” did not know how to read the letters.
The tomb’s inscription was written, of course, in Armenian.
Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev on September 12, 2026, points international diplomats to the tomb of Armenian Prince Hasan Jalal III inside the Gandzasar monastery complex in Artsakh. A state-appointed guide admits on camera that she does not know how to read the script, which is Armenian. Azerbaijan expelled the entire Armenian Christian population from Artsakh between 2020 and 2023.
At the adjacent manuscript museum, a branch of the Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Matenadaran) in Yerevan, Hajiyev triumphantly mocked an Armenian manuscript display.
The diplomats filmed and photographed in his presence were seen grinning and laughing along as Hajiyev pointed to empty pages of the facsimile’s body.
What they were not told was that these were reproductions made purely for display, with select pages reproduced for educational purposes.
The Matenadaran–Gandzasar Center was opened in 2015 to display facsimiles of manuscripts written in Artsakh, while the original manuscripts are preserved in Yerevan for safekeeping.
But there was no Armenian there left to speak.
Azerbaijan’s effort to claim Armenian Christian history as its own is not a new policy, but it is one that has become increasingly aggressive and public since the 2020 war, and the 2023 expulsion of the population.
The “Caucasian Albanian” theory was developed in Soviet Azerbaijani historiography from the 1950s and expanded in the 1970s.
Its implementation combines destruction and alteration of Armenian churches, cemeteries, and other monuments with the removal of Armenian inscriptions and crosses, while recasting the most spectacular medieval Armenian monasteries as “Caucasian Albanian”.
In 2021, President Aliyev called Armenian inscriptions and khachkars (cross-stones) on the Church of Tsakuri “fake”.
The following year, Azerbaijan’s culture minister announced a working group to remove what he called Armenian “fictitious traces” from “Albanian” religious sites.
The European Parliament condemned this policy in its 2022 resolution on the destruction of cultural heritage in Nagorno Karabakh.
It found the erasure of Armenian heritage formed part of a “systematic, state-level policy of Armenophobia, historical revisionism and hatred towards Armenians promoted by the Azerbaijani authorities.”
The resolution called on Azerbaijan to halt destruction of Armenian heritage and specifically noted that the Hague Convention outlaws “any alteration to, or change of use of, a cultural property which is intended to conceal or destroy cultural, historical or scientific evidence”.
In December 2021, the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration against Armenian churches, monuments, cemeteries, and artifacts.
UNESCO in the immediate aftermath of the November 2020 ceasefire formally proposed to carry out a field mission to Nagorno Karabakh “in order to draw up an inventory of the most significant cultural assets, as a prerequisite for effective protection of the region’s heritage”.
The cultural agency has not been allowed access six years on.
Over the weekend, the UN Resident Coordinator to Azerbaijan Dmytro Shlapachenko took part in the state-sponsored excursion to those very sites from which his colleagues remain barred.
He was photographed smirking as Hajiyev mocked the blank interior of a manuscript facsimile, presenting it as proof of a fabricated history.
Magdalena Grono, the EU special representative for the South Caucasus, took to X following the excursion and implied that the Armenian identity of the heritage she had witnessed was up for debate.
She suggested that “deeply diverging views and narratives” existed over the origins of certain sites and should be addressed by Armenia and Azerbaijan as part of their “reconciliation” talks.
EU Special Representative Magdalena Grono is taken on a guided tour to Armenia’s manuscripts research center and repository, the Matenadaran, on September 14, 2026, during which Armenian guides in the presence of Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan explained that manuscripts presented to her in Azerbaijan as “fakes” were in fact facsimiles of the originals stored in Yerevan.
The idea that history be brought to the political bargaining table prompted strong pushback from scholars, civil society, and Artsakh representatives in exile.
“There is no ‘Caucasian Albanian’ or non-Armenian component in Dadivank and Gandzasar monasteries… There are more than 200 Armenian inscriptions dating back to the 12th-17th centuries in Dadivank and Gandzasar, and there is not even a single letter in any other language,” said historian and archeologist Hamlet Petrosyan in a public post to Facebook.
“What Hikmet Hajiyev is doing in front of European diplomats is… yet another manifestation of Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian policy, an act of seizing cultural heritage from its creators and their descendants,” he said.
In an open letter to the diplomatic corps accredited in Azerbaijan, the Committee for the Protection of the Fundamental of the People of Nagorno Karabakh, which works in concert with the Republic of Artsakh government in exile, urged that “diplomatic visits must not become an instrument for normalizing ethnic cleansing”.
The Mother See of Holy Etchmiatzin, the seat of Amenia’s national church, on Tuesday condemned Baku’s appropriation and distortion of Armenian Christian heritage, as well as the mocking attitude of Hajiyev.
“The Armenian Apostolic Holy Church has repeatedly warned that, following the forced expulsion of Armenians from Artsakh, the Azerbaijani authorities have pursued a policy of appropriating historical monuments, destroying Armenian holy sites, khachkars, and cemeteries, as well as destroying documentary evidence attesting to their identity. Hajiyev’s statements constitute another manifestation of this policy,” it said.
The Church called on the Armenian government to take “effective steps” to halt this campaign, as did other civil society groups and individuals.
The number one concerned party, many argued, must be Armenia.
On September 14, EU envoy Grono continued her regional tour in Yerevan and – accompanied by Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan – visited the Matenadaran.
There, she was presented with original manuscripts of the facsimiles she had been told were fakes.
“Ms. Grono was introduced to the Matenadaran’s rich manuscript heritage, with particular focus on the original manuscripts and copies of manuscripts created and preserved at Gandzasar,” a statement by the institute said.
“It was emphasized that original manuscripts have never been exhibited there,” it said, referring to the Gandzasar Matenadaran branch where Hajiyev had taken the diplomats days earlier.
Grono subsequently acknowledged a “rich historic footprint of Armenian cultural heritage, including from former conflict areas”.
“Only the owner can preserve for millennia what they have created,” Matenadaran Director Ara Khzmalyan stressed.
The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, did not officially address Azerbaijan’s claims to Armenian heritage.
A ministry statement on Grono’s visit to the Matenadaran omitted mention of Gandzasar and other sites and manuscripts at the center of the controversy.
Asked for his response, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan referred journalists to comments made by Parliament Speaker Ruben Rubinyan, who on Monday was challenged by the opposition Armenia Alliance bloc leader Anna Grigoryan to state that Gandzasar was Armenian.
The Azerbaijani statements in question, Rubinyan said, were “unfounded” and “not conducive to peace”, but cautioned that the matter required sensitivity.
The timid government rebuttal comes in the context of Yerevan’s policy of acquiescence to Azerbaijan, including an open offer to drop its case at the ICJ and remaining mum during its tenure on the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO, as it seeks to maintain a fragile ceasefire.
Armenian ruling party MP Maria Karapetyan had, days earlier, urged a “calm tone” when speaking about Armenian hostages held in Baku, lest Armenia cause “reputational damage to Azerbaijan.”
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan now warns that even prayers for Artsakh in Armenian Church services may constitute a “call for war”.
Siranush Sargsyan is a freelance journalist from Artsakh and a leading voice on conflict and culture impacting the Armenian world. She holds an MA in Human Rights Advocacy from the Nova School of Law in Lisbon. You can follow her on X @SiranushSargsy1.
