Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry about illegal archaeological expedition in Karabakh

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry declared the illegality of the international archeological expedition to the Azykh cave  on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The official representative of Foreign Ministry Hikmet Hajiyev said that in the occupied Khojavand region of Azerbaijan  Armenians carry out illegal archaeological excavations: an employee of the Spanish National Museum of Natural Sciences Dr. Yolanda Fernandez-Jalvo, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Blendford UK museum employee  Dr. Tania King, and the Museum of natural history of Great Britain, Dr. Peter Andrews, natural history Museum, London.

These individuals have illegally crossed the state border of Azerbaijan and without a license of  the state authorities are in Azykh cave excavations.  They discovered historical and archaeological finds and the illegally took out from Azerbaijan information. These actions constitute a serious violation of Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

They also violated international humanitarian law, Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention 1954, and Convention on the Means of prohibiting and Preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property 1970.”

"Unfortunately, the Spanish National Museum of Natural Science and Blendford historic British Museum do not take the necessary measures to prevent the illegal actions of its employees," said Hajiyev.

Publisher Springer in 2016 published a book «Azokh Caves and the Transcaucasian Corridor» (Azokh cave and Trans-Caucasus corridor ") on illegal archaeological excavations of these foreign nationals headed by Levon Episkopyan in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

All this once again proves that Armenia has pursued a policy of looting, destruction and change the nature of the material and cultural heritage in the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, Hajiyev said.  Therefore, Yolanda Fernandez, Tanya King and Peter Andrews have been included the list of foreign nationals, illegally visited the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. In addition, the issue of  taking legal measures  against  them, said Hajiyev.

The Azikh cave is the oldest place of human settlement in the South Caucasus. Human remains discovered at the time there by the Azerbaijani historians, date back to the age of 100 thousand  years.-06D-