Azerbaijan serves as paragon with its multicultural environment – Albanian-Udi Christian religious community
The multicultural environment in Azerbaijan is a paragon for all countries, Chairman of the Albanian-Udi Christian religious community of Azerbaijan Robert Mobili told Trend regarding the statement of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that a number of countries, including Azerbaijan, are on a "watch list" for religious freedom. "The multicultural environment in Azerbaijan is a paragon for all countries. The environment has been formed for centuries. Representatives of all religious confessions live in amity. The value that unites us at all times is tolerance. The countries of the world also see that there is no religious or national discrimination in Azerbaijan. Regardless of whether our monuments are Christian or other, all of them are protected and preserved. It has become possible thanks to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev," he noted. The community chairman mentioned that a few months ago he visited the US State Department as a member of the delegation. "We raised the matter there, and during my speech, I suggested visiting our country. After visiting Azerbaijan, they saw its realities with their very own eyes. The reintroduction of this matter in this form has been reemphasized after Armenia's defeat in the war. Armenians want to be the owners of cultural heritage related to Christianity in our liberated lands. In this way, they want to create difficulties for our future generations. Their main goal is to claim in the future that the Christian and Albanian cultural heritage churches and temples located in the liberated lands belong to them. The Armenian Diaspora is behind this agenda, which is being discussed in the United States. The main goal of Armenians is to appropriate the monuments of Christianity before the conclusion of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan," he said. According to Mobili, in the early days of the second Karabakh war the so-called "separatist leader" Arayik Harutyunyan attempted to give this war a religious coloring, but failed. "We liberated both our lands and our cultural and r eligious heritage. The pro-Armenian countries are interested in making the peace treaty depend on them. The successor of Caucasian Albania today is Azerbaijan. And the heirs of the Albanian religious community are the Udi people," he said. Source: TREND News Agency