Armenia for decades prevented UNESCO from visiting occupied Azerbaijani territories

Armenia hasn't permitted the UNESCO representatives visit Azerbaijan’s Karabakh for decades, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov told reporters at a conference on the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) model simulation, held at ADA University in Baku.

According to Bayramov, the representatives weren’t allowed to visit the Azerbaijani territories previously occupied by it until their liberation in the 2020 second Karabakh war.

He also said that after the second Karabakh war, Azerbaijan and UNESCO began to cooperate on the issue of conducting researches in Karabakh.

"We invited the UNESCO mission back in June and are expecting it to visit. We do not set any restrictions for it. UNESCO can explore both Muslim and Christian monuments," the minister added.

A videoconference meeting with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President Emmanuel Macron as part of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU, President of the European Council Charles Michel and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan was held on Feb. 4. An agreement was reached during the meeting to send a UNESCO mission to Azerbaijan and Armenia.