Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the destruction of churches in Armenia on freedom of religion or belief in that country.

The UK Government remains deeply concerned over the alleged destruction and desecration of religious and historically important cultural heritage sites in and around Nagorno-Karabakh before and after the 2020 conflict. In a meeting with the Armenian Ambassador on 20 January, the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief underlined these concerns. We continue to urge both Azerbaijan and Armenia to provide UNESCO with unrestricted access to the region and, more widely, to engage with the OSCE Minsk Group to secure a sustainable, peaceful resolution to ongoing regional tensions.