Official says Armenia still holds thousands of Azeri POWs
Trend news agency
11 Nov 04
Baku, 11 November: Despite all their efforts, the Armenians will not
be able to conceal that they are holding up to 4,000 Azerbaijanis in
captivity, MP Rabiyat Aslanova, a member of the state commission for
POWs, hostages and missing persons, has told Trend.
Aslanova also denied the recent Armenian reports which allege that
there are Armenian POWs under false names in Azerbaijan’s prisons. She
said that although Azerbaijan returned all Armenian POWs to Armenia
several years ago, Armenia has not done this yet.
Aslanova said that most of the Azerbaijani POWs in Armenia were
taken hostage during the savage action carried out in Xocali on 26
February 1992. The rest are servicemen and civilians. She said the
Azerbaijani POWs are mainly children, women and old people and that
the state commission has appealed to all international organizations
to help release them.
Aslanova said that the issue of prisoners of war has repeatedly been
raised with the OSCE and the Council of Europe. She expressed the hope
that these organizations would respond to their appeals positively.