BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 5. On December 5, the traditional III International Conference “Cultural Heritage and the Right of Return: Restoring the Cultural Heritage of Azerbaijanis Displaced from Armenia – as a Path to Justice, Reconciliation, and Peace” was held, Trend reports.
The conference was attended by about 100 guests from more than 60 countries, over 100 experts, scientists, public and government figures from Azerbaijan, and members of the Azerbaijani Parliament.
The conference opened with a film about the domestic and international activities of the Western Azerbaijan community and the sensitive approach of the National Leader, Heydar Aliyev, and President Ilham Aliyev to the Western Azerbaijan issue.
Adalat Valiyev, Head of the Department for Relations with Political Parties and Legislative Bodies of the Presidential Administration, read out President Ilham Aliyev's address to the conference participants.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Western Azerbaijan Community, Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament and Chairman of the Initiative Group for Return, Aziz Alakbarli, delivered a welcoming speech and stated that the main mission of the Community is to ensure the right of Azerbaijanis, who have been gradually expelled from Armenia for over 200 years, to return to their homeland in a peaceful, safe, and dignified manner. He noted that the mass deportations of Azerbaijanis from Armenia are systematically destroying the tangible and intangible cultural heritage that has been formed over centuries. He also noted that the only way for Armenians and Azerbaijanis to coexist in the context of the peace process with Armenia is to recognize the right of return. He called on the international community to support this just process.
On behalf of the foreign guests, Samil Ayrim, a member of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye and Honorary Member of the Community of Western Azerbaijan, delivered a fraternal message and stated that the deportations suffered by Western Azerbaijanis are a grave crime against humanity and a historical injustice that has disrupted the balance of power in the region. Emphasizing that Türkiye has always supported the Azerbaijani people, the speaker drew attention to the dangers posed to the region by the consequences of Armenia's transformation into a mono-ethnic state and stressed that return is necessary for justice and peace.
Following the opening ceremony, seven representatives from Türkiye, the U.S., South Africa, Italy, Lithuania, and Egypt, who actively supported the issue of Western Azerbaijan, were awarded honorary membership certificates of the Western Azerbaijan Community.
The first panel of the conference, moderated by an Azerbaijani MP and ADA. University Vice-Rector Fariz Ismailzade was devoted to analyzing the legal and moral foundations of the right of return. Speakers included Professor Yaşar Sarı, director of the Heydar Aliyev Center for Eurasian Studies at Ibn Khaldun University, French historian Maxime Gauvin, Mark Nathan Kramer, Research Fellow at Harvard University, and Professor Carlos Uriarte, representing a Spanish pan-European organization, who spoke about the place of the right of return in inter-state relations and the humanitarian obligations imposed on Armenia in light of international experience.
In the second panel, dedicated to the protection of tangible heritage and moderated by Klaus-Peter Ralph Jürgens from the UK, the following speakers shared their views on the legal assessment of the destruction of Azerbaijani heritage in Armenia and the possibilities for its restoration: Muhammad Sohail Sajid, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; Carlo Marino, Vice President of the Italy-Azerbaijan Association; Astrid Nadia Rizgita, President of the Indonesian Youth Organization OIS; and American professor Michael Martin Gunther.
Speaking on the third panel, dedicated to intangible heritage, ashug art, music, folklore, oral memory, cultural traditions, moderated by AVIM representative from Poland, Nadia Boyadzhieva, professor at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Ornella Ramashauskaite, director of artXchange Global, Professor Mohd Wahib Ali Hussein from Hashemite University in Jordan, and Swedish director Mikael Silkeberg, emphasized the role of culture in preserving the identity of displaced communities and ways of introducing the world to the heritage of Western Azerbaijan.
In conclusion, Professor of the International University of Graduates, Honorary Member of the Community of Western Azerbaijan Huseyin Isiksal read out the final document of the conference, after which, on behalf of the Community of Western Azerbaijan, the chairman of the Community's Control and Audit Commission, Professor Vahid Novruzov, highly praised the results of the conference and expressed his gratitude to the conference participants for supporting the Community's just cause.
The event confirmed that the restoration of the cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis deported from Armenia is not only a matter of historical justice, but also an important condition for establishing lasting peace and tranquility in the region. The conference participants, having received extensive information about the refugee life of Western Azerbaijanis, the systematic destruction, distortion, and appropriation of their tangible and intangible heritage, called for strengthening international cooperation in the protection, restoration, and transmission of cultural heritage to future generations.
