A meeting of the religious leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia was held.in the St. Daniel's Patriarchal Monastery of Moscow (Russian Federation), at the invitation of His Holiness Kirill I, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
During the trilateral meeting, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians conveyed his remarks to His Holiness Kirill I, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade, Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin reported.
“Your Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia,
Dear Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade,
We welcome you at this regular meeting of the regional spiritual leaders, which became possible due to the steady mediation efforts of our spiritual brother Patriarch Kirill. Six years have passed since our last meeting in this format, which took place in Yerevan in November 2011, convened on the occasion of the Presidium meeting of the CIS Interreligious Council.
In the hope of establishing peace in the lives of our peoples, we direct our steps toward these meetings to discuss the ways through which the spiritual leaders can contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Karabakh.
Unfortunately, today the results of the invested efforts are not significant, but the expectations of our people in this search for a peaceful coexistence are much greater and substantial.
In this regard, we expect positive results from the organized meetings of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, their Foreign Ministers, and the negotiations process.
Despite the statements made during the meetings of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents, and the calls and messages of the spiritual leaders, today, the ceasefire continues to be strained on the borderline, there are still soldiers killed and sometimes also peaceful residents of the border settlements. We find it particularly worrying the cases of shielding behind the civilian population and turning them into an intentional target.
Militaristic appeals and statements on increasing armament do not stop beyond the border. All of this greatly endangers the efforts to build an atmosphere of mutual trust and understanding, and shatters the already fragile ceasefire, transforming a new reality of conflict expansion which we witnessed in April 2016 when large-scale military operations were unleashed by the Azerbaijani armed forces.
Everyone knows the chronology of those days, which was also documented by the international community, soldiers killed in battle as well as the tortures committed against peaceful civilians; atrocities and violence caused losses and destruction.
Remembering these incidents, a natural question arises: how can stability and peace of the situation be preserved when the efforts made in that direction are unilateral. How can we achieve peace when efforts and measures are not spared to instigate hatred and enmity among their own population against the neighboring Armenian people in all possible and impossible ways; and to counteract the fair and objective assessments of the Armenian side and the international community with unjustified accusations.
There is no alternative to peace in our region, as well as the settlement of the...
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