The policy adopted by Azerbaijan and Turkey is not limited only to considering the Armenian cultural heritage as their own. This time they do not focus on the monument of Artsakh, but of the capital of Armenia. A part of Hanrapetutyan Street /32 Hanrapetutyan Street/ belonged to Persia's Hadji Abbas Calibara Abdou Hussein Oglu in the 1950s . In 1876, the residence of the first consul of Persia was built there. The architect of Yerevan , Mikhail von der Nonne, is German.
The walls of the Iranian Consul's room were completely covered with frescoes. They are fully preserved. There is a mirrored prayer hall in the center of the room. The torch which was hung in the Consul's room in 1927 was designed individually by Al exander Tamanian .
The Consulate operated until 1920.
Then t he Armenian division headquarters was in this building. Later, the Armenian Relief Committee, which was headed by Hovhannes Tumanian, worked here for three years.
According to the archival secret document, the Armenian Historical Monuments Conservation Company work ed here from 1963. One of its founders was the painter Martiros Sarian, who was also the first president of the company.
According to the cultural policy adopted by Azerbaijani-Turkish tandem, it tries to consider this building which is in the center of Yerevan as itself. The Russian-language service of t he Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) in the video made by himself presents the building as a part of the “Azerbaijani Royal Palace”.
It was not a novelty to the NA deputy, a c andidate of Historical Sciences Gor Yeranyan : “ Azerbaijan considers itself any Muslim monument and even not a Muslim which are mainly located in the Caucasus. We are dealing with the policy of possessing and extortion, which, of course, is under the terminology of cultural genocide”.
The policy adopted by Azerbaijan is not limited only to the attempt to privatize the Armenian cultural heritage.
Gor Yeranyan has stated that they try to redirect all the cultural monuments of the Iranian state of the Safavid period and consider the Safavid state as Azerbaijani in general. In this context all the monuments created by that dynasty are considered their own.
Such behavior of Azerbaijan also made angry the “ Armenian Historical Monuments Conservation Company ” NGO. They made an announcement condemning this obvious falsification and the regular attempt to privatize the cultural heritage of others.
As the executive director of the NGO Hripsime Harutyunyan stated, the real target of the material is not so much Armenia and the Armenian audience, but Iran and the latter’s audience. For preventing such encroachments on the Armenian heritage, we should unite our efforts for the recognition, ownership and preservation of our heritage in the Armenian Highlands,” he noted.
According to the member of the NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport Anna Kostanyan, it is not the first time: “There are always such convulsions by Azerbaijan in the form of encroachments on the Armenian culture. The main purpose of this is to erase the Armenian trace in Armenia and in the region in general, in order to prove in every way that they had cultural monuments here before the Armenians.
According to Gor Yeranyan, Azerbaijan and Turkey are unsurpassed in terms of forgery: “The Karabakh conflict is hidden here. Azerbaijan always did not accept the existence of the Armenian ethnos in Artsakh – considering us Albanians (Aghvan),” the MP concluded.
The Azerbaijani-Turkish obvious falsifications around the building located in the center of Yerevan, unfortunately are continued in absurd ways.