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Director of the National Library Prof. Karim Tahirov, who participated in the 36th CENL annual meeting held at the Presidential Library of Turkey in Ankara, met with the current president of IFLA, Barbara Leeson.

During the meeting, Karim Tahirov, talked about our territories occupied by Armenia 30 years ago and liberated by the Azerbaijani Army under the leadership of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Mr. Ilham Aliyev in November 2020, the complete destruction of historical monuments, cultural institutions, and libraries there.

He said that in November 2020, under the leadership of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Commander-in-Chief Mr. Ilham Aliyev, the victorious Azerbaijani Army liberated our territories occupied by Armenians for more than 30 years as a result of the 44-day war. Director Karim Tahirov noted that 975 libraries that once existed in those areas were completely destroyed and their valuable book collections of 4.6 million copies were brutally burnt.

As the director of the National Library of Azerbaijan, on behalf of the library directors of the 10 liberated regions, in December 2020, he addressed a letter to the former president of IFLA, Christine Mackenzie, asking them to organize a mission to assess the situation on the spot in the regions liberated from the occupation. In her reply, Christine Mackenzie stated that IFLA strongly condemns the war, that deliberate damage to historical monuments and cultural institutions is unacceptable and also requested permission to share photos of destroyed libraries with colleagues at Blue Shield and UNESCO. However, unfortunately, we have not received an answer to our request regarding sending a mission.

For this reason, Karim Tahirov appealed to IFLA President Barbara Leeson and asked for the organization of a mission consisting of specialists to evaluate the condition of libraries in the destroyed regions. Karim Tahirov stated that we are ready to receive representatives of both CENL and IFLA in our country as the National Library of Azerbaijan and invited Mrs. Barbara Leeson to our country to participate in the VIII Baku International Book Fair to be held in Baku in October this year and to inspect the libraries in our liberated territories. At the end of the meeting, prof. Karim Tahirov mentioned that as a country that was once invaded, the Republic of Azerbaijan strongly condemns all kinds of war and occupation, and it is significant that IFLA and other international organizations take a serious approach to such situations so that such situations do not occur and repeat themselves. The President of IFLA stated that she accepted the invitation and said that she was very sorry for such incidents.