In 2006, Azerbaijan barred European Parliament members from investigating the claims, charging them with a "biased and hysterical approach" to the issue and stating that it would only accept a delegation if it visited Armenian-occupied territory as well.

Lying near the Aras River, in the historical province of Syunik in the heart of the Armenian plateau, Jugha gradually grew from a village to a city during the late medieval period.

[10] The oldest khachkars found at the cemetery at Jugha, located in the western part of the city, dated to the ninth to tenth centuries but their construction, as well as that of other elaborately decorated grave markers, continued until 1605, the year when Shah Abbas I of Safavid Persia instituted a policy of scorched earth and ordered the town destroyed and all its inhabitants removed.

[1] Scottish artist and traveler Robert Ker Porter described the cemetery in his 1821 book as follows:[12] ...a vast, elevated, and thickly marked tract of ground.

It consists of three hills of considerable magnitude; all of which are covered as closely as they can be set; leaving the length of a foot between, with long upright stones; some as high as eight or ten feet; and scarcely any that are not richly, and laboriously carved with various commemorative devices in the forms of crosses, saints, cherubs, birds, beasts, &c besides the names of the deceased.

Some have merely the plain form; others decorate its coat with strange figures and ornaments in the most elaborate carving.Vazken S. Ghougassian, writing in Encyclopædia Iranica, described the cemetery as the "until the end of the 20th century the most visible material evidence for Julfa’s glorious Armenian past.

In regard to the destruction, according to the Azerbaijani Ambassador to the United States, Hafiz Pashayev, the videos and photographs that were introduced did not show the identity of the people nor display what they are actually destroying.

Hannes Swoboda, an Austrian MEP from the Social Democratic Party and committee member who was denied access to the region, commented that "If they do not allow us to go, we have a clear hint that something bad has happened.

"[3] Doctor Charles Tannock, a conservative member of the European Parliament for Greater London, and others echoed those sentiments and compared the destruction to the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in Bamyan, Afghanistan in 2001.

"We think that if a comprehensive approach is taken to the problems that have been raised," said Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Tagizade, "it will be possible to study Christian monuments on the territory of Azerbaijan, including in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

After several postponed visits, a renewed attempt was planned by inspectors of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for August 29 – September 6, 2007, led by the British Labour politician Edward O'Hara.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Armenia issued a statement saying that Azerbaijan had stopped the visit "due solely to their intent to veil the demolition of Armenian monuments in Nakhijevan.

In April 2011, the newly appointed United States ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza visited Nakhchivan but was inexplicably refused access to Julfa by Azerbaijani authorities.

Adam T. Smith, an anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, called the removal of the khachkars "a shameful episode in humanity's relation to its past, a deplorable act on the part of the government of Azerbaijan which requires both explanation and repair.

The project, led by Dr Judith Crispin and Prof. Harold Short, is using 3D visualisation and virtual reality techniques to create an immersive presentation of the medieval khachkars and ram-shaped stones set in the original location.

[25] As a response to Azerbaijan barring on-site investigation by outside groups, on December 8, 2010, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) released an analysis of high-resolution satellite photographs of the Julfa cemetery site taken in 2003 and 2009.

The AAAS concluded that the satellite imagery was consistent with the reports from observers on the ground, that "significant destruction and changes in the grade of the terrain" had occurred between 2003 and 2009, and that the cemetery area was "likely destroyed and later leveled by earth-moving equipment.