The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute has condemned the recent desecration of the Holocaust memorial in Yerevan.

The monument, which, honors the victims of both Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, was spray-painted with the names of Israeli-made weapons that were used to target civilian settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) during the 44-day war in fall 2020.

"Of course, the policy of the state of Israel, in particular, during the war was condemnable. Not only did Israel deliver weapons to Azerbaijan [prior to the hostilities], but it also did not stop the deliveries even after it was proved that those weapons were being used to annihilate the civilian population of Artsakh," the AGMI said, adding that complicity in genocide is punishable under the UN Genocide Convention.

"But the Holocaust memorial has nothing to do with the state of Israel. It symbolizes the suffering of the Jewish people, with whom we have relations spanning thousands of years."

The Museum-Institute said the vandals must be "severely punished."

"Linking the memory of the Jewish children killed in Auschwitz to the policy of the Israeli government is unacceptable," the AGMI added.