Assistant to Azerbaijan’s President, head of Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev disseminated information about that allegedly a church in the historical Azerbaijani Shusha city suffered a missile shelling from Azerbaijan's side.
He pointed out that Azerbaijan has great respect for the feelings of Christians, while Armenia is manipulating this issue and spreading misinformation.
"The materials presented by Armenia about the missile shelling of the church are contradictory and are obvious lies," Hajiyev noted.
"Firstly, the Azerbaijani army doesn’t shell the churches and other civilian objects. At the indicated time, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces didn’t fire in that direction. Secondly, if there was a missile launch, the icons inside the church would’ve been seriously damaged. But, as can be seen from the photos, the icons weren’t damaged. Thirdly, Armenia began to assert that this strike was allegedly inflicted for the first time by F-16 fighter, that it was an aerial bomb, then began to assert that it was a missile strike," the president’s assistant stressed.
"There is no F-16 fighter in the arsenal of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. As it can be seen, every time Armenia’s lies are exposed, the Armenian side begins to resort to new speculations. So, it is another provocation of Armenia, an attempt of an information attack on Azerbaijan. It is unacceptable to give a religious coloring to the ongoing military aggression against Azerbaijan by Armenia," Hajiyev noted.
“This way, Armenia wants to hide the policy of destruction of the material and cultural heritage belonging to the Azerbaijani people in the occupied Azerbaijani lands, the destruction of mosques and other religious monuments. These days, a missile was launched from Armenia at a mosque in the Beylagan city and the Imamzade religious complex in Ganja. Azerbaijan renovates Christian religious monuments in many places around the world, including the Vatican,” the president’s aide added.
"We express our respect for the Christians of the world. After the liberation of the Azerbaijani lands from the Armenian occupation, all cultural and religious monuments will be restored and renovated here," Hajiyev added.
The Armenian armed forces committed a large-scale provocation, subjecting the positions of the Azerbaijani army to intensive shelling from large-caliber weapons, mortars, and artillery installations of various calibers in the front-line zone on Sept. 27 at 05:00 (Msk). The command of the Azerbaijani Army decided to launch a counter-offensive operation of Azerbaijani troops along the entire front to suppress the combat activity of the Armenian armed forces and ensure the safety of the civilian population. To date, the city of Jabrayil and most of the Jabrayil district, more than half of the Fizuli district were liberated in the south, and the strategically important Murovdag mountain and the so-called sixth fortified area around the village of Sugovushan in the north were liberated.
