EU Special Representative Magdalena Grono will arrive in Yerevan on Sept. 14 after visiting Azerbaijan, where she joined a trip to Karabakh organized for diplomats by Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev and visited Armenian churches presented as heritage of Caucasian Albania. She announced the visit on X.
“On Sept. 11-12, I joined for the first time a trip organized by Azerbaijani officials for the diplomatic corps to former conflict-affected areas in Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur to see the situation on the ground. We had an opportunity to engage with representatives of local authorities, former internally displaced persons and media. During the trip, we also visited various sites of cultural and religious heritage, including mosques and churches,” she wrote on X.
She added that discussions in Baku addressed European Union support for the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia, including humanitarian issues related to the consequences of the former conflict, as well as efforts on connectivity and regional cooperation.
“Following exchanges in Azerbaijan, I now look forward to meetings tomorrow in Yerevan with Armenian officials and civil society representatives,” she wrote.
During her visit to Baku, Grono met Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov; Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration; and Elchin Amirbayov, Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Special Assignments.
Hajiyev took diplomats accredited in Azerbaijan to Gandzasar and Dadivank, presenting them as part of the Christian heritage of “ancient Caucasian Albania.”
Sergey Shahverdyan, head of the Artsakh Tourism and Culture Development Agency NGO, sent an open letter to diplomatic representatives working in Armenia, saying foreign ambassadors who visited Stepanakert and posed for photographs in the so-called “Victory Park” should not become part of Azerbaijan’s political and propaganda narrative, in which the consequences of the Armenian population’s displacement are portrayed as “victory” and “liberation.”
