The meeting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia with the General Director of UNESCO.

On November 9, in Paris, within the framework of the 42nd session of the UNESCO General Conference, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan had a meeting with Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO.

Ararat Mirzoyan touched upon the consequences of the ethnic cleansing of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan, presenting the efforts of the government of Armenia to respond to the primary needs of more than 100,000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh. Minister Mirzoyan emphasized the importance of addressing the right to education of about 21 thousand displaced children of school age, noting that the opportunity to realize the right to education has already been ensured for most of them. In this context, the Foreign Minister appreciated UNESCO's immediate response and deployment of the UNESCO emergency mission to Armenia for the assessment of the educational needs of forcibly displaced refugee children.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and the Director-General of UNESCO touched upon the issue of preservation of the Armenian cultural and spiritual heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Foreign Minister of Armenia expressed concern about the reasonable risks of destruction, desecration or appropriation of the Armenian cultural and spiritual heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh, stressing the need for UNESCO's active participation in the protection of cultural monuments. Both sides emphasized the importance of deployment of UNESCO’s fact-finding mission to Nagorno-Karabakh for independent monitoring and mapping of the cultural monuments on the ground.

Other issues related to the agenda of cooperation between Armenia and UNESCO were also discussed at the meeting.