23:59, 5 December 2020

Azerbaijan and Armenia agree to exchange POWs

The parties have agreed on the principle of exchanging prisoners of war (POWs) under the "all for all" format. Both those who were captured during the last escalation of the Karabakh conflict and those who had been captured earlier will be exchanged, the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 4, Baku and Yerevan exchanged lists of POWs. The relatives' data and videos posted on the Internet indicate 60 soldiers and about 40 civilians in Azerbaijan's captivity, said Artak Beglaryan, the Ombudsperson of Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to unofficial data, up to 150 Armenian soldiers may be held as POWs in Azerbaijan, but Azerbaijan has confirmed the presence of only nine, said Ani Samsonyan, a member of the parliamentary commission on human rights. By November 27, the Vanadzor Office of the Helsinki Civil Assembly had compiled a list of 586 names of missing military servicemen.

"The major task is to return our POWs. The principle of exchange 'all for all' has been agreed," the RIA "Novosti" quotes Mr Pashinyan as saying, adding that another important task is the search for the missing. The bodies of Armenian soldiers are being removed from the territories now controlled by Azerbaijan. After the truce, more than 600 bodies were removed; identification of 500 of them continues, the "Sputnik-Armenia" has reported.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 5, 2020 at 11:37 am MSK. To access the full text of the article click here.