ArmInfo.The leadership of Azerbaijan did not provide additional security guarantees for the Armenian delegation and prevented Armenia from participating in the 43rd session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. The press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Anna Naghdalyan said this at a briefing on July 3.
She noted that Armenia received an invitation to participate in the Committee's session as an observer, but since the event was to be held in Baku, the Armenian side turned to UNESCO for security guarantees, taking into account the anti-Armenian propaganda carried out by the Azerbaijani authorities. "Since not only citizens of Armenia, but also people of Armenian descent experience problems during attempts to enter Azerbaijan," Naghdalyan said.
However, she noted, despite all the efforts, two days before the event we received a letter from the UNESCO secretariat in which we were informed that Azerbaijan had not provided additional guarantees. "Thus, Baku actually prevented the Armenian delegation from participating in this event. It became a bad precedent. In this regard, Armenia appealed to the UNESCO secretariat with a complaint in which it asked to pay attention to the behavior of Azerbaijan and assess what happened," the press secretary said.
She also noted that the reports of the Azerbaijani media about sending of the UNESCO mission to Karabakh are not true.