On November 21-22, 2025, a group of Armenian civil society representatives visited Azerbaijan within the framework of the “Bridge of Peace” Initiative.
Within the framework of the visit, representatives of the Initiative from Armenia, Areg Kochinyan, Boris Navasardyan, Naira Sultanyan, Narek Minasyan, and Samvel Meliksetyan, met with their Azerbaijani counterparts Farhad Mammadov, Rusif Huseynov, Kamala Mammadova, Ramil Iskandarli, and Fuad Abdullayev.
The Armenian experts who arrived in Baku visited the historical and modern sites of the city, as well as the Armenian church.
When the Azerbaijani delegation visited Yerevan, they did not visit the historical Blue Mosque located in the city, which raised widespread questions on social media.
Modern.az reports that Farhad Mammadov, head of the South Caucasus Research Center, clarified the issue raised in public discussions regarding the Yerevan visit.
Farhad Mammadov stated in his interview that the route and program of the visits are determined by the host country and presented to the other side.
According to him, in the official program presented during the visit to Yerevan, a visit to the Blue Mosque was not included at all:
“However, we included a visit to the Armenian church in Baku in our program. We are ready for this".
Farhad Mammadov stated that the management of the Blue Mosque is currently carried out by Iran:
“They are not ready for this yet. Because the Blue Mosque and its management are carried out by Iran.”
The expert noted that the Azerbaijani side, however, openly demonstrates the protection of Armenian cultural heritage on its territory and considers this a principled stance:
“There are Armenian churches on the territory of Azerbaijan, and they are preserved. There are over 5000 Armenian books there. However, there is not even a single book in Azerbaijani in Armenia.”
According to Mammadov, the showing of the Armenian church in Baku to the delegation is a demonstration of Azerbaijan's attitude towards culture and religious heritage:
“We are different. Armenian churches in our country have not been destroyed; on the contrary, they are protected. They saw this with their own eyes.”
