Christian cemetery destruction can spoil Moscow-Baku relations

PanARMENIAN.Net - "The situation with the Nariman cemetery can have a negative influence on relations between our states," said Vasily Istratov, the Russian Ambassador to Azerbaijan.



He said the Embassy received plenty of complaints about the issue.



"We sent an Embassy employee to the site when the process began. We think that the process of reinterment should be held in accord with the adopted rules," he said, Day.az reports.



As reported earlier, under the pretext of building a highway Baku demolishes a Christian cemetery (the Nariman cemetery), where Armenians, Jews and Russians were buried.



Although local authorities assure of reinterment, photos in Internet show a complete dump. The photographers say the bulldozers just raze the graves to the ground depriving the relatives to rebury the remains.



The city administration says exhumation and reinterment is performed in accord with ethnic and religious traditions in the presence of relatives of the deceased. Meanwhile, the Jewish News Agency reports that "observance of Jewish traditions is restricted to the fact that grave-diggers throw the ashes into sacks and then give them to the relatives."