BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 24. Leaders of religious confessions operating in Azerbaijan issued a joint statement, Trend's correspondent reports from the event.
The statement was made at an event held at the Caucasus Muslim Board (CMB) to mark September 27, the Day of Remembrance.
The statement reads:
“We are marking the sixth anniversary of September 27, 2020, a date that has forever gone down in the history of the Azerbaijani people. This date will forever remain in the memory not only of our people but of all humanity as a day celebrating Truth and Justice, as the starting point on the path to the Great Victory. Our people will always cherish this Day of Remembrance as a chronicle of Honor, heroism, and self-sacrifice in the name of the Motherland!
The war, which began on September 27 and lasted 44 days, went down in history as a glorious victory for the Azerbaijani Army, culminating in the enemy’s complete surrender. On November 8, Armenia’s 30-year policy of occupation came to an end. Azerbaijan raised the tricolor flag over its ancestral lands, which National Leader Heydar Aliyev called “a symbol of our statehood and independence.”
“The international community must clearly understand that the reasons that led us to September 27 were extremely serious and indisputable facts. For approximately 30 years, Armenia occupied 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory. The occupation was accompanied by war and crimes against humanity. As a result of the ethnic cleansing carried out by Armenia, more than one million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced persons.
By failing to comply with UN Security Council resolutions, Armenia, emboldened by impunity, chose to continue the occupation and deliberately derailed the negotiation process. In July 2020, Armenia carried out a military provocation along the state border with Azerbaijan. As a result of artillery shelling directed at Azerbaijan’s Tovuz District, 13 military personnel and civilians were killed.
Later, in August, an Armenian sabotage group crossed the former line of contact and attempted to carry out terrorist acts against Azerbaijani military personnel and civilians; however, this attempt was successfully thwarted.
In response to Armenia’s large-scale attack on Azerbaijani military positions and the civilian population, on September 27, Azerbaijan, exercising its right to self-defense as enshrined in the UN Charter, launched a counteroffensive against Armenia on its own territory.”
“For 44 days, the Armenian Armed Forces intensively shelled our districts and cities located along the front line —Aghdam, Aghajabedi, Beylagan, Dashkesan, Fuzuli, Goranboy, and Tartar. In the occupied territories, the Armenian Armed Forces destroyed Muslim and Christian places of worship, violated the laws of war, norms of international law, and the relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions. They also shelled cities, both those located along the line of contact and those far from the combat zone—with prohibited weapons and bombs, including Ganja, Barda, Mingachevir, Gabala, Siyazan, Khizi, and other cities, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of innocent people — children, women, and the elderly — and carried out strikes on civilian settlements. Even the capital, Baku, was targeted by missile attacks from Armenia. Due to the laying of landmines in our territories during the occupation, civilians and military personnel continue to be killed and wounded to this day.
We, the leaders of religious denominations operating in Azerbaijan, during the Great Patriotic War and after Victory Day, actively worked with all religious centers and international organizations with which we cooperate to expose the war crimes committed by the Armenian side against our people, as well as the disinformation and baseless accusations it spreads.
We spread information worldwide about the crimes committed against the civilian population of Azerbaijan. All religious denominations jointly appealed to the international community, international organizations, and religious centers, and issued joint statements. In those days, as always, we stood united with all religious denominations active in Azerbaijan, and shoulder to shoulder, we supported our struggle for justice.
Even today, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Albano-Udis of Azerbaijan, together with Muslims, surround the families of those who died for their homeland with attention and care and honor their memory with dignity.”
“For the liberation of Karabakh, which we had awaited for so long, our children gave their lives in the name of Allah and the Motherland, and bequeathed the victory won with their blood to the Azerbaijani people. In the struggle for the liberation of Karabakh, drawing on the values of tolerance and multiculturalism that have long been part of Azerbaijan’s tradition, all our citizens have united even more closely and demonstrated their devotion to the Motherland.
Polad Hashimov, Mubariz Ibragimov, Albert Agarunov, Denis Pronin, Yakovlev, Polovinko, Senyushkin, and hundreds of our other heroes reached the pinnacle of martyrdom, giving their lives for their native Azerbaijan. Their noble memory will forever remain in our hearts and will always be remembered with deep respect. We pray to Allah for mercy upon each of our martyrs who gave their lives for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country, and we wish our veterans a speedy recovery.
Today, we are extremely pleased with the large-scale restoration and reconstruction efforts planned and already actively underway on Azerbaijani soil to address the bitter consequences of Armenian vandalism — the restoration of barbarically destroyed cities and villages, historical and spiritual sites, as well as the demining of our territories.
The sounds of the azan echoing from restored historic mosques, as well as the restored and reconstructed places of worship and Christian churches, are a manifestation of the tolerant state policy of Azerbaijan — a country that values its spiritual values and multicultural religious heritage as a national treasure, revives and carefully preserves it.
Our state, while preserving the Armenian church in the center of Baku, is simultaneously restoring Orthodox and Armenian churches in Shusha alongside our mosques. This is a vivid manifestation of the care and patronage of the Azerbaijani people and state toward spiritual values.”
The primary goal of us, religious leaders, is to remind people of the lessons of history so that we may prevent wars, the deaths of innocent people, terrorist acts, and conflicts in the future.
To this end, on Remembrance Day, September 27, which is inscribed in our history as the beginning of the path to the Great Victory, we ask the Almighty to bestow His mercy upon our heroic martyrs.
May the Almighty protect the Azerbaijani state and people and always grant them victory! May the Almighty help us establish peace and justice throughout the world! Amen!”
Chairman of the Caucasus Muslim Board, Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade
Chairman of the Mountain Jewish Religious Community, Milikh Yevdayev
Bishop Alexy of the Baku and Azerbaijan Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexiy Smirnov
Chairman of the Albanian-Udi Religious Community, Robert Mobili
Vicar General of the Apostolic Prefecture of the Catholic Church in Azerbaijan, Josef Marek
Chairman of the Baku Religious Community of Sephardic Jews, Zamir Isayev
Deputy Chairman of the Religious Community of European Jews, Evgeny Brenneysen.
