“The mission undertaken by UNESCO – the specialized structure of the United Nations for Education, Science, and Culture is extremely important in the current complex international environment. At a time when double standards became the norm in international politics, the global community had expectations of fair and objective position from UNESCO, a non-political organization,” Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament Hikmet Babaoglu told News.az.

MP Babaoglu emphasized that Mehriban Aliyeva, the First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, as a goodwill ambassador of UNESCO since 2004, has done a lot of work to increase the prestige of the organization and implement the humanitarian projects: “With the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, numerous projects have been implemented in Azerbaijan and beyond the country, in different countries regardless of religious, racial, and cultural affiliation. Unfortunately, when it comes to Azerbaijan, neither during the 30-year conflict nor during the two-year post-war period, the crimes committed by Armenia against the material and cultural heritage of Azerbaijan were not registered and condemned by UNESCO.”

According to him, despite Azerbaijan several times inviting UNESCO to send an assessment and identification mission to the territories liberated from occupation, the organization didn't send: “The crimes committed against our material-cultural and religious-spiritual heritage were not assessed on the cultural-humanitarian level, and Armenia's barbarism was not condemned. Thus, UNESCO has not fulfilled its mission in relation to Azerbaijan. Rather than an independent international organization, the organization behaved more like a department of one country's Ministry of Culture. That's why Mehriban Aliyeva's request to terminate her turn as a goodwill ambassador in this organization is a decision close to the heart of every fair person and every patriotic Azerbaijani. Although Mrs. Mehriban Aliyeva made this action within the framework of her own tact and diplomatic ethics, there is no doubt that under this gesture there is a generalized expression of the Azerbaijani public opinion, and this is highly commendable.”