Religious leaders urge parties to Karabakh conflict to release captive civilians

After the today’s meeting in Moscow, Allakhshukyur Pashazade, the leader of Azerbaijani Muslims; Garegin II, the Supreme Catholicos of all Armenians; and Russian Patriarch Kirill have called to set all the civilians captured during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh free, and prevent any acts of vandalism in churches and mosques.

Both parties in conflict took civilians captive, Patriarch Kirill said.

Earlier, Garegin II treated the condition of the Armenian Church in Baku as unsatisfactory, while Allakhshukyur Pashazade, Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAM) of the Caucasus, has invited Patriarch Kirill to visit Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and see the condition of the church, the APA reports.

The parties to Karabakh conflict have repeatedly accused each other of destroying religious monuments. Thus, in 2006, Mass Mailman, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nagorno-Karabakh, stated the destruction of Armenian hackers in the city of Nakhichevan. In August 2015, Nagorno-Karabakh rejected accusations of destroying Islamic monuments and using them as warehouses.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.